


For Every Star in The Sky

by luxgloriana



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Alternate Universe - Space, Bodyguard, Collection of one shots, Crimes & Criminals, F/M, Gang Leader Jessamine, Gen, Jessamine Kaldwin Lives, Jessamine is Marked, Organized Crime, Other, Role Reversal, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 09:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23848873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxgloriana/pseuds/luxgloriana
Summary: Jessamine was Corvo’s star — a guiding light, impossible to mistake in the darkness.And for every star in the sky, there is a universe where the two of them had a separate story.***A nonsense collection of Corvojess AU one-shots.   Tags concerning what AUs can be found inside will be updated with each chapter.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin, Emily Kaldwin/Wyman
Comments: 23
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have a pretty long list of AUs I wanted to do, and I've been working on them for... 6 months? But in typical me fashion, 1. I can't write succinctly, and 2. ADHD will always come along and destroy my momentum and keep me from ever finishing anything. But with aspects of the world being throughly shitty, I thought I would post what I have completed. 
> 
> I can't guarantee if I'll ever post more than the few I've already completed (which, uh, I completed 5 months ago, if not longer than that). There are a few other one-shots I'm trying to finish up right now, so I'm predicting I'll post 6, maybe 7, different AUs for you to read at max. I'm also not really in any place in my life to be taking requests or anything, but I hope you enjoy what I’ve done!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessamine is surrounded by rats. The ones that Corvo summoned from the Void are the least dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A classic AU. Jessamine lives, and she and Corvo both receive the Outsider's mark.

They had always been good together. Even when they had hardly known each other, they’d matched well, but now, they had years of experience of knowing what the other was going to do, and how they felt, without saying it. And then there was a certain natural… something between them, something made from respect and admiration and love and trust and natural affinity. It made them good dance partners, it made them good companions on long journeys and during long days of work, and it made them good partners in… whatever this was. 

Vengeance? Retribution? Righteousness? 

It was heresy, if nothing else. 

Jessamine had been the one to appear out of smoke and shadow at the top of the watchtower and remove the whale oil tank, while Corvo stood in the shadows on the ground, distracting the handful of members of the Watch below with a small swarm of rats. 

With that threat gone, they used their new powers to climb to the top of the gatehouse at the end of Clavering Boulevard. The Watch had recently barricaded the gate, but that was no obstacle to them. They were no longer the Empress and Lord Protector — they had become something far different in their disgrace. 

It had been fascinating, seeing how different their powers were. Either one could disappear from one spot and appear in another, but the way it looked was completely different. Corvo seemed to move through the air like a meteor in the night sky, a flash of light from one one point to the other. Jessamine seemed to dissolve into shadow and appear in space slowly, like a dark cloud forming over the sea. 

And they both seemed to see things they should not, but in different ways. Corvo could see threats and tools through walls, while Jess could sense runes and bone charms from a great distance away. And when Jessamine pulled upon the power to find magic things around her, it was always accompanied by the strangest spark of knowledge, personal and unknowable knowledge about the people near her. It didn’t work on Corvo, but she had learned many interesting things about the Loyalists at the Hound Pits. The kind of interesting that made it a little difficult to look them in the eye, sometimes. 

And with the last runes they discovered in the sewers under the pub, Corvo had learned how to summon a small swarm of rats. It was certainly an unusual power — although, if they weren’t the very carriers of the plague that was ruining her city, Jessamine would almost think them cute. 

Jessamine had only used her newest power once — it took a lot of will from her, but she was able to link the fates of two poor weepers together, so that one sleep dart from Corvo put them both to sleep. She hoped it would make saving people’s lives easier, while she and Corvo did something that no one else had ever done before. 

There was no way of knowing how many other Marked there were in Dunwall, or on Gristol, or in the Empire as a whole. There was Daud, and now the two of them. She couldn’t remember if she had actually seen the Mark on Granny Rag’s hand or if the old woman had learned of other ways to gain power. 

There couldn’t be many, and it seemed to Jessamine that it would be unlikely that any of them were working together, as she and Corvo were. If there were even two or three others Marked and they were as powerful as she and Corvo sensed they might be, and they were all cooperating, they could have taken down the Imperial Government, the Abbey, and anything else that might stand in their way. But they hadn’t, meaning that either there were very few Marked, or that they were all of such incompatible personalities that cooperation was impossible. Or that they had no ambitions whatsoever, and with the Outsider’s preference for  _ interesting _ people, that seemed unlikely. 

That realization made her feel all the more singular, even if that felt strange to admit, even to herself. She, who had been destined to be the Empress of nearly the entire civilized world from birth, felt more unique than ever and the irony was not lost on her. She and Corvo could do anything, go anywhere. Perhaps they could have done so before their disgrace, as Empress and Lord Protector, but there are always unseen and unspoken limits to what an Empress might do, as long as she wished to retain the respect of her people. Now, there were no such limits. The only limits were those they placed on themselves, and beyond that they could do as they liked. 

But first, they needed to actually decide on what it was they would like to do. 

“I… I want to go directly to the Golden Cat.” Jessamine admitted, laying low against the slope of the gatehouse roof as she watched a guard unzip his pants and relieve himself on the fence outside of Dr. Galvani’s house. She rolled her eyes— _ was that really necessary?  _ “But I know that would be foolish. We can’t guarantee that we can get Emily out of the building safely if we cannot get in safely. And yet…” 

Corvo nodded. 

“I just want her… back.” He whispered, his voice raspy as he adjusted his mask to fit closer to his face. 

They had been separated, in Coldrige. After passing the first few days in adjacent cells, they had moved Jessamine to a cell they’d built specifically for her. It was a metal box, built on top of the prison, accessible by one single staircase and one single door. The solid steel door of her cell had three separate locks and there was a Wall of Light separating her cell from the stairs. The walls were solid concrete, with the exception of the steel bars at the very top of the wall, vertical rods that extended about a foot from the concrete to the metal roof. The space between the bars was just small enough Jessamine could fit her hand through the space, but her arm wouldn’t fit past her elbow. 

Burrows himself had been there when they relocated her to her special cell. He said the bars were so that she could look at the Empire she betrayed and ruined, and suffer as it fell further into despair. Jessamine suspected that it was reallly so that the cold and rain could pour into the cell and leave her miserable, while she spent every minute in there knowing an incompetent traitor was running her empire into the ground. And the isolation, she believed, was to keep her away from any of the other prisoners or guards, to keep her from charming them into believing her side of the story. She had suspected, and the Loyalists confirmed that Burrows did not have as much popular support as he had hoped. Burrows always complained about Jessamine’s desire to be likeable, and liked by her people. She was pleased that his own methods of rulling had bit him in the ass. No one liked Burrows, other than the richest of nobles who had a personal stake in his reign. 

But there weren’t enough people able or willing to do anything about Burrows. Not for months. 

And then one day she woke up from a nightmare and Corvo was there, standing outside of her cell. Jess didn’t even believe he was real — was she really so lucky that one of the two people she loved most in the world was there for her? He unlocked the door with a set of stolen keys and let her out, beckoning her from the cell with a particular wave, holding his hand out to her and bringing it to rest above his heart in a mimic of a salute. With weary legs, she followed as he led her through the deactivated Wall of Light, and as he tried to keep her from seeing the guard that was lying at the base of the stairs, his neck clearly broken and his eyes glazed over. 

Jessamine followed him through the prison, sneaking past the other guards and stealing what coins and ammunition they could in preparation for whatever awaited them outside of the walls. When they finally arrived at the drawbridge gate, two unconscious guards hidden on pallets at the opposite end of the room, Corvo pulled a clockwork explosive from his pocket, and spoke the first words he’d whispered to her in months. 

“Stand back. Get ready to jump.” 

His voice hadn’t been the same since—and they had hardly talked about what had happened during their separation in Coldrige. Neither one was ready yet. But Jessamine suspected that Corvo had spent a good deal of time in the interrogation room, if his reaction to the chair was any indication. Burrows and the rest, they left her alone, left her to worry after her daughter and Corvo and her throne and her empire, with no one else around. She suspected that she was meant for more symbolic tortures than whatever they had in mind for Corvo. Poor, dear Corvo. 

They could talk about that later. Maybe they would both feel a little more peace once their daughter was back where she belonged, with them. Having Emily returned to them would heal their greatest wound, perhaps they would be able to find the peace they needed to move on once she was returned to their care. 

So she went on, clearing her head of thoughts of her isolation and her disgrace, replacing them with thoughts about her daughter. 

“But believe it or not, I’ve never been to the Golden Cat. I don’t know anything about what it’s like, or what we might find. If there’s anything we can learn first…” 

Corvo just gave her another look, reminding her that if she had never been to the Golden Cat, that she shouldn’t expect him to have been there either. 

She sighed, and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear as the breeze off the Wrenhaven blew past them. Since being put in prison, falsely accused of hiring the Knife of Dunwall to assassinate Burrows and of importing plague rats, she’d forgone her signature twisted updo in favor of a more practical braid that wrapped around her head like a crown. She always hated that twisted style anyway, but… people expected an Empress to look a certain way. Her age and her relative prettiness had never helped people take her seriously, so she’d always needed to go out of her way to look serious. 

Perhaps it would be easier to change the people’s idea of what their Empress should be like after she restored herself to the throne. There would have to be many changes, some widespread, and others more personal. Part of her had considered doing entirely away with tradition, and considered asking Corvo to marry her once this mess was cleaned up. If she wanted her Lord Protector to be the first ever married Royal Protector, and if she wanted him to be married to  _ her _ , she would do that. That might clear some things up about their loyalty to each other, and to Emily. Maybe they would just lie, and pretend they’d been secretly married the entire time. 

Jess had never really minded not being married to Corvo. She never thought their relationship was any worse off for not having a ceremony to make it official. But it would be nice, to openly acknowledge that the three of them were a family. It was already wearing on Jessamine to watch the Loyalists at the Hound Pits dance around their own suspicions about her relationship with Corvo, and Corvo’s relationship to Emily. They were all so afraid of saying the wrong thing to her, and of angering Corvo, and there was only so much of their prevaricating she could stand. 

And she would have to start wearing gloves, or refuse to let anyone see her hands in order to keep the people from taking up arms because their Empress was now a heretic. Maybe she could fabricate some kind of horrible disfigurement, and she can make sure the people know that she’s hiding a horrible scar on her hand, or that she was hiding part of a missing finger. 

Perhaps it would be easier to abolish the Abbey. If their last excursion to Clavering Boulevard was any indication, there was more evil and corruption within the Abbey than she’d ever suspected. Campbell was the worst of it, but he wasn’t the only rotten apple in the bunch. The people she had surrounded herself with in her former life, those she selected herself, inherited from her father, or had selected for her, were snakes. Snakes and backstabbers. She needed to be more careful letting anyone closer to her. 

A thought occurred to her. It had occurred to her before, but never with any kind of urgency. Before, it had only ever crossed her mind when she was alone, or when she was with too many people. Now, it was only Corvo and herself, and half a dozen hostile guards on the ground below. No time like the present. 

“Corvo?” 

Crouching down, he crept closer to her, one hand resting on the shingles to keep himself steady on the steep rooftop. 

“What?” He whispered. 

“Do you trust the Loyalists?” She asked, speaking the words slowly and clearly. 

It was a paradox. They were loyal to her, by name. They were risking imprisonment and execution in order to restore a Kaldwin to the throne. They had been nothing but cordial and respectful, and had been mostly transparent about what they wanted and why they were risking so much under Burrow’s authoritarian rule. But Jessamine had been raised in politics. She knew plans and schemes as well as Corvo knew lunges and parries. 

And if the past six months had taught her anything, it’s that neither of their skills were infallible.

“No.” He answered, laying down next to Jessamine. He set a wide, warm hand on the center of her back as he looked across the avenue, towards the Wall of Light. “Not entirely.” 

“Neither do I.” 

Jessamine ignored the twisting feeling in her gut as she accepted, regretfully, that the guards on the avenue below were not following any kind of schedule, or formation as they moved.  _ They would just have to be careful.  _

The issue was Havelock, Jessamine had decided. Men like Pendleton and Martin she knew—she’d known men like that her entire life. She could understand them. Even if she did not know all of their secrets or motivations, she knew how men like that behaved. Although her new powers had revealed some surprising facts about their lives, they still fit perfectly within a certain mold. They would act in their best interest, under the guise of acting in everyone’s best interest, and if those two causes just happened to overlap every now and then to give themselves some legitimacy, then all the better for them. 

But Havelock was different. Maybe she hadn’t spent enough time with navy men to learn how they think, how they strategize and prioritize, but there were many things about Havelock she just couldn’t figure out. He showed her every courtesy, and appeared to have been very forthwrite with his goals and ideas, and had allowed Jessamine and Corvo into every one of their little planning cabals. But he was still hiding something from her, the Empress he had sworn to return to the throne. 

Maybe Burrows’ betrayal had just made her paranoid. 

Maybe Burrows’ betrayal had taught her a very important lesson. 

It seemed that there was a missing piece to their plan, and Jessamine could guess at the general, but not the specific. Martin was already on his way to being the new High Overseer. Pendleton would be an obvious choice to make Prime Minister, once she was reinstated. These men were not doing this purely out of the goodness of their hearts. Sure, perhaps they were genuinely loyal to the Kaldwin line, and maybe they were loyal to her in particular. Maybe they just hated Burrows so much that they would do anything to have him disposed. They all wanted power, that was clear, but how did Havelock want his? 

That was another paradox. Most people who had a taste of power always wanted more. And then there was Jessamine, the ultimate power of the Empire, who had always known that power was a burden. It was a burden she bore gladly, because someone needed to and she had been trained since birth to know how to do it, but no one else ever understood the stress and troubles of the position. 

No one other than Corvo, but he had always been different. He was, by some people’s perspectives, the second most powerful person in the Empire by nature of his closeness to her. But it had never changed him. It had changed Burrows, and it likely changed Campbell. Would it change Havelock too? 

She sighed, and adjusted the metal bird-beaked mask that Piero had made for her. 

One way she could figure out what the Loyalists wanted was to wave temptation in front of their face. It was a trick that had worked for her before, when faced with deception and intrigue within her court. It would work again in the Hound Pits pub. 

“When we bring Emily back, we’ll watch them. Maybe, once she’s in the picture, we’ll learn more about what they have in mind. And then we can make a plan to protect ourselves, and protect Emily. I’m not… I’m not going to restore myself to the throne just to be surrounded by more ambitious and cutthroat men that I can’t trust to have the Empire’s best interests in mind. And I’m not going to let anyone use Emily. But first…” 

Corvo brushed his hand up along her back to rest on her shoulder, and if they hadn’t both been wearing masks, she suspected that he would have kissed her cheek, or maybe the crown of her head, as he’d done many times before. 

She couldn’t imagine doing any of this without Crovo. 

“But first, we get Emily.” 

She nodded and held up a finger, asking him to wait. She really should have done this first, to decide if going through Bottle Street was worth it before they’d already snuck past the guards at the very end of the boulevard. But her powers were still new, in her defense, she kept forgetting she had them. 

She held her breath, and closed her eyes, and with the power of the Void, she reached out in every direction— 

There was a pulsing feeling, off to her right. A pulsing, and a pulling feeling, like some kind of tether, drawing her towards a bright spot of power. 

A bone charm and a rune waited for them in the direction of Slackjaw’s distillery. 

She took a slow breath, and opened her eyes. 

“Let’s explore Bottle Street first. And then we get our daughter back, and find something to do with the Pendleton twins.” 

Corvo nodded. 

And then one last thought that had been bouncing around Jessamine’s head occurred to her. She grabbed onto Corvo’s shoulder to stop him from standing up just yet. She had another recurring thought she needed to bring to his attention, before she forgot it again and let another moment pass. 

“Before we go anywhere,” she dropped her hold on his shoulder, and grabbed one of his hands — the Marked one — instead. “When all of this is finished, on the very first peaceful day we have, I am going to pack a basket with all of our favorite foods and a very expensive bottle of wine, and you’re going to take Emily and I out on the Wrenhaven in that little boat, and we are going to spend the whole morning out there, just the three of us. That is an Imperial Decree, not a request, my love.” 

And Corvo laughs. It’s the first time she’d heard him laugh in nearly a year, between their stay in Coldrige and the months he spent on his tour of the Isles before that. It does not sound like she remembers that warm, low chuckle of his that was saved for moments between the two of them when he wanted to kiss her but couldn’t, but the meaning was still the same as ever. 

“Of course, Your Majesty.” 

Jessamine smiles beneath her mask, glad that something was still a little normal. And maybe… 

The Loyalists had given her and Corvo separate bedrooms, although she could tell a few of them suspected the complexities of her relationship with Corvo. He was in the attic, while she had been given the master bedroom on the second floor. Maybe tonight would be a good time to exercise her abilities by sneaking out of her window and into Corvo’s bedroom. It would be a change for him, as he’d always been the one to sneak into her room, and it was a little more private up in the attic… 

Though they would have Emily back. She’d been given a very secure room in the tower with Callista, but she would very likely want to sleep near one of her parents tonight. It’ll have to be a family night, then, and not just a private night between her and Corvo. It hardly seemed a hardship. 

Grabbing Corvo’s hand, they stood one after the other, balancing on the shingles of the steep gatehouse roof. And a moment later, they vanished, and re-appeared on top of a near-by lamppost. 

Jessamine and Corvo had always been cautious people. They worked well together, and they would get Emily back by the end of the evening, safe and sound, even if it took them a few hours longer. And then they would keep their daughter safe, together. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Officer Attano of the Imperial Royal Guard has some hesitations about a possible promotion, but he proves exactly why he deserves it after some of DAUD's bots try to kill the Imperial Princess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A space AU! Add a little Coursucant from Star Wars to Dunwall for the future city aesthetic and add a little of the noble-family politics of Dune, and that's the vibe for this AU. Oh, and how could I forget, Jessamine is totally wearing Princess Leia's white dress in this.

When Officer Attono woke that morning in the warm light of Dunwall’s two suns, his personal data center delivered its usual daily spiel with one surprising addition.

“Good morning, Corvo.” The pleasant, but still distinctly artificial voice said. “It is 6:30, on the 28th day of the Month of Rain. The weather this morning and afternoon will be chilly and breezy, but sunny. A rainstorm will begin in the early evening, bringing lower temperatures and stronger winds. Today, your first assignment is to join the Emperor and the Imperial Princess in the royal breakfast room before accompanying them to parliament for the duration of today’s session. And congratulations, you have been a citizen of Dunwall and a member of the Royal Guard for one year, as of today. The Imperial Government thanks you for your loyal service.”

By the end of the message, Corvo had forced himself from the warmth and comfort of his bed, and stood by his Karnacan coffee machine, waiting for it to finish brewing his first cup of the morning. His hand hovered to the side of the machine, waiting for the very second the cup would be ready as the meaning of the words coalesced and solidified in his mind.

He had hardly even paid attention to the date. The past few days had been a blur, as he changed from night shift to day shift once more. And then, the previous night, he had been up late, spending his free time and paycheck with some of the other officers at one of the nearby pubs. Corvo hadn’t drunk that much, but some of his companions had drank far too much. It had fallen to him to make sure they all made it back to the Tower barracks safely, and to give them the injection of vitamins and hydration facilitator that Sokolov has invented to prevent hangovers. He’d been out late and slept very little, and things like the date were far from his mind.

It had been a year and a day since the Duke of Serkonos had seen Officer Attano off as he boarded the Morgengard, an interplanetary passenger ship bound for Gristol. It had been one year since Officer Attano had been utterly flabbergasted to discover that not only had he been assigned to the Dunwall Tower Security Team, he’d been placed as a part of the Royal Guard.

It had been one year, minus a day, since he’d met Euhorn Kaldwin, Emperor of the Four Planets and Hero of the Morley Robot Insurrection, and his daughter, the young Lady Jessamine, Imperial Princess of the Four Planets.

It had been… a very strange year. Corvo had been expecting a mid-level job in the City Watch, maybe in the Tower itself if he was lucky, but never expected to be placed in the Royal Guard. Nearly every member of the Royal Guard was a native of the planet Gristol, or had lived there for a very long time. Corvo knew his transfer to Gristol was a gesture of goodwill from the Duke of Karnaca, a sign of loyalty in a time where loyalty was scarce. OF course, the Emperor would return that goodwill by giving Corvo a good assignment. But putting a newly arrived Serkonan in a position where he was responsible for the most important man in the solar system, and his heir, was surprising. To say the least.

Many people, most of them important, had trouble accepting a Serkonan Officer in such a critical position. He still had soldiers and guards much lower ranking than himself giving him a hard time for his home planet, his accent, even his age. But the Emperor liked him, his crew liked him, and the Princess liked him, albeit in a rather different way than either the Empress or his crew liked him, so Corvo had managed to get by.

There were still other difficulties he had to adjust to within the past year. The food, the music, Dunwall’s gloomy weather. The endless sprawling city itself.

As Corvo drank his morning coffee, he slid up the tinted privacy shield from his bedroom window and looked out. The view had never even started to get old. Dunwall Tower stood on the banks of the Wrenhaven River and stretched hundreds of feet into the sky. The lower guard barracks, where Corvo trained and accessed the armory, were located on the 10th, 11th, and 12th floors. The Royal Guards were housed on the 214th floor, just one story below the floor where the Emperor and his daughter lived at the very top.

From his bedroom window, he could see everything. Tall, shining towers stretching high above the ancient buildings left in their shadows, and wide, sweeping gardens full of trees and flowers that had already shed their leaves and gone dormant for the approaching winter. And all of it lay far below Corvo’s feet. Nothing in Dunwall was taller than Dunwall Tower, the heart of the city and of the Empire. Oh, the old clock tower used to loom just a little higher than the Tower, but it, and the old city-wide loudspeaker system, had been replaced by another one of Sokolov’s inventions. The city had recently launched a system of giant, floating orb-shaped screens that could be seen from any angle which delivered broadcasts and information on the news, the date, the positions of the four planets around the center point they all orbited, and the position of the two suns.

One such screen was floating past the Tower below, somewhere around the 150th floor. It was large enough that Corvo could see the diagram showing that the Outsider, the slow-moving red-dwarf sun, would remain visible in the Dunwall sky for the next three days, while the larger and brighter yellow star, the Everyman, would continue setting the nights and days as always. That, at least, was the same as Serkonos. Even if the Outsider was visible at different times from every city on the four planets in the Empire, the one week out of each month when the night sky turned blood-red was the same.

But the people were not the same. Karnaca was not a friendly place. With the increasing turmoil in the silver mines in Karnaca, people were not kind to each other, especially not in the Batista district where Corvo grew up, and where he had worked for two years with the Grand Guard. The Guard could be harsh in their punishments, but your neighbors could be even worse if they believed you had wronged them. But Dunwall was cold and impersonal. The people were rarely outright antagonistic, but they were just as likely to stab you in the back once you had turned and looked the other way as the people of Karnaca were to corner you in an alleyway and punch you in the gut. And in Dunwall, the capital of the Empire of the Four Planets, everything was political, from who you dined with to where you purchased your clothing or weapons. Making friends and allies was tricky, and well beyond Corvo’s merger political skills. The adjustment hadn't been easy for him. 

Corvo could take solace in the fact that if nothing else, the Emperor and his ilk were good people. The other members of the Royal Guard were competent and respectable, and he was lucky to throw his lot in with them. They were a point of stability, even if it was hard to call some of them _friends_.

His coffee finished, Corvo pressed the button to slide the privacy shield back into place, and sluggishly dressed for the day. He wore his usual blue and gold uniform and his shiny black boots, with his laser pistol on one hip and voidite-alloy sword on the other. Then, with one last passing thought, he splashed a little water on his face in a meager attempt to feel ready and alert for the day to come.

He, and a team of five other Royal Guards joined the Emperor, Lady Protector Marsh, and Lady Jessamine in the breakfast room, all of them slowly ambling in one at a time. Corvo stood watch in one corner, but helped himself to some Serkonan berries and a few Gristolian pastries during the sedate breakfast. Corvo was one of the first in the room, aside from the Emperor, a man who seemed to never sleep, and he was clearly feeling better than the other guards who slowly arrived. He tried not to make his lack of a hangover all that obvious to the others who’d spent their night at the pub—they would just return the favor and gloat the next time it was his turn to work with a nagging hangover.

After breakfast, all six guards accompanied the Emperor, his heir, and his Lady Protector to the shuttle bay on the 175th floor, walking in neat formation around the Emperor and the Lady. They all boarded a little shuttle to Parliament, and once they had arrived at the gleaming, silver dome built upriver on the banks of the Wrenhaven, Corvo helped part the way through the crowd of people that had assembled there so that the Emperor could pass. Every elected and appointed representative from the Four Planets was in attendance, with guests and journalists and those who had recently provided testimony all gathered in the hall that stretched around the outside of the main meeting chamber. Corvo had never seen it so crowded, and hardly anyone had even heard the Emperor's arrival announced, so it was difficult to convince people to move out of their way, even with their Royal Guard uniforms and their glowing identification badges in hand. 

Parliament was set to vote on a new measure aimed to help stop the illegal inter-planetary slave trade. It was one of those bills that, Corvo believed, every sane person should have supported, but was unsurprised to realize just how unpopular it was among certain members of the Imperial Parliament. 

It was no secret how brutally mistreated the poor people who were taken as slaves were at the hands of the crime lords and smugglers who stole them away from their homes. But politics was a messy business. Several members of Parliament, including the two eldest Pendletons, believed the bill would interfere with silver business, because they used slaves to mine their silver when they ran short on prisoners and robots to do it. And then, there were others — those who had significant financial, or personal, investments in the city’s brothels who objected for incredibly transparent reasons. It was no secret that some of the brothels in the city bought slaves for their establishments. Some of the more lewd and heartbreaking details of the city’s most famous brothel, the Golden Cat, has been revealed in a newspaper article months before, and it was all anyone had been talking about for weeks.

Jessamine herself had been trying to update laws to make things better for all people who worked in the city’s brothels, no matter their gender, planet of origin, or whether they were free or if someone owned their contract. But the same block of people had been arguing against both bills for ages had used every trick in the bylaws to try and delay the vote for the bill until after Parliament took its month-long break over the winter. That would give them more time to find more people they could strong-arm into voting against the law. But Finally, the Emperor has used his own tricks to push the slave-trade bill to a vote sooner rather than later, with the hope that it would pass and make Jessamine’s laws easier to institute. It had required a few favors and some charming of some key political allies over some very expensive whiskey and cigars, but Parliament couldn’t delay the vote any longer.

Today was the day the vote was finally to be held. As expected with something so controversial, the members and their clerks were taking their time voting. One by one, members stood from their assigned seats, spoke into a microphone that carried their voices around the cavernous dome, and announced their votes. Each representative explained why they chose to vote the way they did for the benefit of the historical records, and each clerk took their time recording every word and every vote, verbatim.

It was nearly dinner time by the time the vote was called and Parliament adjourned for the day, with the new provisions having passed by a narrow margin. The Emperor and his crew were the very first to leave the silent, solemn dome behind. The expected rain had arrived, and it fell to Corvo to hold the force-field umbrella over Lady Jessamine’s head as she crossed over the white marble stone outside of the parliamentary building and into the leviathan-crystal powered shuttle that would take them back to the Tower.

She spared the most fleeting of little smiles for Corvo as he held the umbrella above her head, and another warm smile as she took her seat in the shuttle next to his. 

When they returned to the Tower, the Emperor left to prepare for a dinner with the Rosegrave family. Jessamine had chosen not to attend, claiming that she was just not in the mood. Usually, Corvo would have gone with the Emperor on such an occasion, but Lady Protector Marsh had very quickly divided up the members of the Royal Guard, and declared that Corvo would remain at the Tower with Jessamine. One of the off-duty guards had already been called to take Corvo's place, so that the Emperor was traveling to his dinner with a full retinue.

They split off to go their seperate ways, and without a word, Corvo followed Jessamine to her bedroom on the south side of the tower. Corvo waited aimlessly outside of her room—she hadn’t dismissed Corvo for the night, and she hadn't invited him inside, so he wasn’t quite certain what she was up to. It wasn’t like her to go to bed early, and it wasn’t like her to forget—

Jessamine slipped right through her door, a heavy coat draped over her arm.

“I’d like to spend some time in the gazebo if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course,” Corvo said. He would put up with the cold and rain and endless gloom if that’s what she wanted. It was his job. And it was… her.

He followed her to another secret elevator, hidden behind a bookcase full of tomes about the long-dead civilizations that lived on Gristol thousands of years before. It was the quickest and easiest way to access the roof, as all of the staircases with roof access had much greater protection to pass through.

Jessamine’s mother had planted a garden on the roof a few years before her death. It was a lovely and private place, the kind of place that only the royal family and their closest guests ever saw. At the center of the garden was an ancient marble gazebo, relocated from the gardens of the former Dunwall Tower, the old stone ruin whose foundation had been destroyed in order to build the shining metal one that stood now. There were a few small chairs and benches in the gazebo’s shelter, and it was one of the few places of undeniable peace to be found in the Tower. It's where Jessamine went when she just wanted to enjoy the quiet. 

As the elevator opened, Corvo reached into one pocket of his uniform coat and pulled out a little metal box that fit neatly into his palm— his force field umbrella. Jessamine stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“You’ll get wet.” He insisted.

“And? It's not raining that hard, just enough to ruin my hair. Who do I need to look like a refined, flawless future Empress for up here?” She asked, her perfect pink lips twisting in a wry little smile. “You? You’ve seen me in worse states.”

He knew what she meant by _worse_ , and he was inclined to disagree and say that she never looked bad at all. But they had had that argument a dozen times, and he had never been close to wining it.

“Fine.”

They left the shelter of the elevator, and Jessamine’s proclaimed lack of care about getting wet aside, she crossed the distance to the gazebo in long, quick strides to avoid the rain. Corvo, as always, followed two steps behind.

Jessamine took a seat on one of the benches and waved her hand to have Corvo take the seat next to her. She fastened her coat around her shoulders and waited for him to sit. He wasn’t supposed to sit on the job, but he did anyway.

Beside him, Jessamine twisted sideways, leaning her back against his shoulder, and pulled her knees up against her chest. Her hands went to her hair, and she pulled out pin after pin, letting her hair fall from its elaborate updo. She deliberately ignored Corvo’s indignant huffs and groans as she hit him on the head with her elbows once, twice, three times.

“I need to talk to you,” she said a little while later, running her fingers through her hair.

“I assumed.”

“Did you? What is it that you assume I want to talk to you about?”

“I don’t dare to presume to know everything that goes on in that head of yours. But you come here when you have something important to think about. And Lady Marsh was less than subtle when she singled me out to stay here alone with you.”

Now that he said it out loud, he had a small, suspicious feeling about what was going on.

Jess laid a hand on Corvo’s knee, and tucked her head underneath his, resting on his shoulder.

“It’s been three months, almost four, since Delilah was killed." She said, slowly. "Normally, I wouldn’t announce a new Royal Protector for two more months, but father is convinced Burrows is going to try and start a coup, so we'll have to forgo tradition in the spirit of practicality. And there is no one that I would rather have by my side than you.”

Corvo was filled with two disparate feelings. Pride and joy, and regret. It was scarier to hear the words said out loud than it was to imagine her saying them. 

He coughed to clear his throat.

“Wouldn’t that be… some kind of conflict of interest?”

“It’s not traditional for a Princess to be entirely in love with her Lord Protector, but as I just said, we’re doing away with tradition. How many times have you saved my life already, my love? There’s no one else who can protect me better.”

Corvo had expected that Jessamine would pick someone entirely different. They could never — she was the brightest star in his sky. He adored her. Corvo had never been in love before, but it had been so easy for him to love her. But the idea of serving as her consort was not something that particularly encouraged Corvo. For all that he had learned during his year in the Tower, following the Emperor and Princess, he was no politician. How could he be both the Princess’ love and protector?

“If Burrows does try to throw a coup, then we’ll have to introduce sweeping reforms in order to prevent another. It’s what happened after the Morley Robot Insurrection, and after the War of the Four Planets. We may as well add a proclamation that says it’s okay for an Empress to marry her Lord Protector while we’re at it.”

She was exasperating and headstrong. It wouldn’t be that simple, and she knew it as well as he did.

“Jessamine,” he replied, using her full name because this was important and serious. It wasn't something he could just decide during a quiet evening on the roof, and she knew that. She knew he would need some time to make that decision, and yet — 

And, just like their first kiss, their first night spent together, and the first time the Imperial Princess dared to tell her lowly, common-born guard that she was in love with him, they were rudely interrupted.

Corvo heard it first, and whatever words he had for her died twisted in his throat as his head turned to look at the edge of the Tower’s roof. On the edge of the roof were Watchtowers, miniature laser turrets that were built into the decorative marble railing. They weren’t the most powerful weapon in the quad-planetary system, but they were extremely sensitive. Most importantly, they made a very distinctive mechanical noise when they powered-up that let everyone know something was wrong.

The moment ruined, Corvo pulled his pistol from his belt, and activated the distress signal woven into his uniform — the other on-duty guards were far from the Tower by now, but the off-duty guards, and even the night guards, would come.

But they couldn’t come fast enough.

“Take cover,” Corvo hissed as he darted up from the bench, turned the safety off of his pistol, and hid behind one of the weathered columns. The Emperor wouldn’t be pleased if the gazebo was damaged in an attack, but the Emperor would be even less pleased if his daughter and only heir died.

Jessamine, her blue eyes wide, listened to Corvo and took cover behind the marble bench they’d just sat upon. She crouched as low to the ground as she could, even as she withdrew her own pistol — the one the guards pretended not to know that she had — and readied it.

The Watchtower fired before anything even came within Corvo’s line of sight. He saw the smoke, indistinct as it was in the rain and fog and distant glimmering city light SL that surrounded the Tower, and then the threat rose up into sight.

Robots, of course. Flying robots, with skeletal frames, leviathan crystal powered thrusters on their feet, heads that reminded Corvo of those old-fashioned respirator masks, and they were all painted gleaming red. Some of them were equipped with blade-like arms, while others fired lasers. All in all, they weren’t the scariest or more intimidating robots in the galaxy, but they went anywhere in anything less than a swarm.

At first there was one, and then three. The first had been hit by a shot from the turrets, but these were robots produced by DAUD, the preeminent droid and robot manufacturer of Dunwall’s shady criminal underground. They were fast and sturdy, and unless you managed to hit one of their few weak spots, they could take up to a dozen hits before they failed.

At first, there was one such robot, flying over the edge of the building, and then there were three, and then there were five. The Watchtowers helped, but they weren’t as accurate as Corvo or as fast. But it didn’t take long for the smell of ozone and acrid smoke to fill the rooftop, as one by one, the robots fell with a clatter onto the rooftop. Corvo knocked down one, and then two, and the Watchtowers finished the third. It was Jessamine who took out the fourth with an expert shot to an unprotected coupling on the bot’s leg.

Nearly two dozen of the robots attacked before either wondered if the attack might be over. When the last robot fell into a crumpled hunk of metal, crashing down into a rose bush, neither moved. They didn’t make it out entirely unscathed, but they were alive. Corvo had received a razor-thin cut on his arm from the clever swipe of a blade, and Jessamine had hit her head on a column while diving for cover, but things could have been much worse. Their fingers remained on the triggers of their pistols, ready to take aim and fire a laser at the next threat. There wasn’t one.

They were both startled when a team of Tower Guards, accompanied by a team of off-duty Royal Guards, finally stormed onto the root from the elevator and stairway doors, their own weapons drawn. 

Corvo heard one of the other guards, Curnow, direct some of the others to collect the remains of the hostile robots, and others to go hit the right alarms and speak to the right people to initiate a security lockdown. Some of the dozen or so guards walked past the gazebo, and with a few hand signals and significant, serious expressions on their faces, made sure that Corvo and the Princess were okay.

As a far-off siren could be heard from somewhere lower in the building, they collapsed onto the bench together, their shoulders brushing together. Corvo returned to his senses quickly, as other guards walked past, one way and then the other. He turned his head to watch Jessamine’s face. Anyone else would have assumed she was in shock, with her wide eyes and perfectly stoic face. Corvo knew better. She was hard to shake. Jessamine was wrapped up in her own head already, thinking.

“Jess, my star, are you — “

“It was Burrows.” She said, her voice steady and clear. “This was the start of his revenge. My life as repayment for his lost job, not even a week since he was exiled. Do you think Burrows is working with DAUD? He has to be, who else would have the capital to afford to send those bots to the Tower?” She asked, her eyes gazing straight into the rainy mist hanging over the city.

“A coup,” Corvo murmured, watching as she fell deeper and deeper in thought.

“It must have been him…” Jess stood, abruptly, from the bench, but she did not go anywhere. Her eyes never wavered from the horizon. “He still has all of his personal spies under his command. He probably saw that father left with a full team of guards, and assumed that there would be no one on duty watching me. And he’s either watching the roof and knew I was out here — unlikely, he would have known not to attack if he knew you were here — or he sent so many robots because he knew that not all of them would make it past the security system. He was willing to sacrifice a few very expensive bots as a distraction so that the survivors could get in and kill me in the Tower.”

It all made perfect sense. Of course, the possibility that the recently ousted Planetary Spymaster might throw a coup was, as of earlier that day, just a fleeting rumor. Everyone, from the Emperor, to his Generals, and to his new Spymaster, they all believed Burrows would not have the means or opportunity to strike for some time. And the Kaldwins and the Throne had no shortage of enemies with the means and motive necessary to have sent a team of robots to kill the Imperial Princess. DAUD could have sent the bots just to have a little fun at the Tower’s expense. It could have been anyone who was pissed about their support of the new restrictions on the silver mines, like the Boyles or Pendletons. The Emperor and the Imperial Princess would always be in someone’s crosshairs.

But Burrows made the most sense. Especially if he had made a deal with DAUD, an organization that would have all the resources he lacked. Not that that meant that Burrows was totally without resources. No, he would have the intelligence, and DAUD the tools, to attempt a coup.

Corvo groaned. Unraveling the details of this attack was low on this list of his priorities. He would leave that to the other guards, and to the politicians. All he had to do was to try and keep Jess safe for now. There were a limited number of places in the Tower that didn’t have some kind of surveillance system, whether that meant cameras or listening devices meant to trigger alarms after the sound of explosions or gunfire or the like. Very few people would know that. Burrows, as the former Spymaster, would; Corvo and Jessamine were two of the very few who knew that as well.

“Jess,” Corvo murmured, his voice low as he stood beside her. He gently brushed his hand across her shoulder, and felt a little pang of remorse when Jessamine jumped at his touch.

“Jess,” he said again. “Let’s go inside, and find somewhere to wait in safety. We’ll have to wait for the others to examine these bots to determine who sent them, and there could be more on their way. And we may as well go back inside to wait for your father to get back.”

Euhorn would leave his dinner the minute he heard about the security breach. The first thing he would do is ask if anyone had been killed; the second thing he would demand would be to see his daughter.

“Alright,” Jess whispered, returning her laser pistol to the hidden holster on her leg, under her coat and under her dress. “Alright,” she repeated and reached her hand out to grasp at Corvo’s arm.

They walked together back to the safety of the elevator, giving another few nods to the guards swarming the roof as they passed to let them know they were alright. They stepped inside the elevator with its smooth, silver walls, and as the doors slid shut, Jessamine took one step closer to Corvo’s side. She leaned her head against Corvo’s arm and sighed.

There was a beat of silence, and Corvo felt himself relax, even as the adrenaline coursed through his body. Jessamine’s presence had that effect on him.

And then he felt her smile, and his stomach dropped in time with the elevator’s descent.

“You realize,” she murmured, her voice warm and low as she nestled against his arm, “that after single-handedly saving the unarmed and unprotected Princess from an attack from DAUD's bots, you’re going to have quite a difficult time convincing anyone that you’re not the perfect candidate to be my next Royal Protector.”

“I was trying not to think about it.”

There’s a beat of silence, just as they feel the elevator begin to slow.

“You choffer,” Jess whispered, and even though the micro-weave of his uniform, Corvo could feel her smiling against his arm. "Just say yes already." 

"I'll say yes when I'm ready to say yes." 

The elevator doors opened, and they were hit with the flashing lights of the security alarms and the blaring sound of the sirens. Corvo took one last moment to press a kiss to the crown of Jessamine's head before leading her into the safety of her bedroom. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Jessamine Kaldwin didn't become the first Gristol-born Royal Protector by being a coward. The Dowager Empress thinks Jessamine may need a reminder of her own courage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was probably the most enjoyable of all of the AUs to write -- the Role Reversal AU. It's cute! It's indulgent! It’s fluffy! It’s great thing to use as a distraction because things are Bad right now! Enjoy!
> 
> Quick note: the Grand Palace in DH2 was built by Luca, so that building doesn’t exist in this AU. But this one, which I imagine as looking more like Aramis Stilton’s house in style, is in the same location as the Palace in-game, because it’s the perfect spot for a palace. Also, with the role reversal, I kind of imagined that in this AU, Jessamine is actually a little older than Corvo, not that that matters too much for the story.

The gossip had not started overnight. No, like a plague, it had started in one small spot, among the servants of Karnaca’s wealthiest citizens, and then spread a little, and then spread a lot. And then, the entire city knew.

Outsider help them all, the entire Empire likely knew.

It had taken them years to admit to it, but the Emperor and his Lady Protector were in love.

They’d met as bright-eyed, silly teenagers. She was the daughter of an army captain from Gristol, a prodigy with a sword and crossbow. She had the quickest reflexes that anyone had ever seen, a keen mind and, despite all of the hardships she’d faced at home and in Dunwall’s City Watch, a kind heart. He was the Emperor, and had been since he was a child. His mother had been ruling as Regent for more than ten years, following the death of the Emperor and Lady Beatrici, and he had spent years knowing that he was meant to be the ultimate power in the Empire. Despite that, he was a reserved boy, who always felt his responsibilities keenly and followed through.

But Lord Corvo Attono was not so staid and reserved that no one believed he was free of all vices—after all, there were rumors that he snuck out of the Palace at night to visit pubs and dance halls like every other young man in the city. And those pubs and taverns and dance halls were not the sort of place one went to drink tea and maintain a respectful distance from your dance partners.

Lord Corvo was not a chaste Overseer, and the new Lady Protector was a very pretty girl. She looked rather fetching in the bright red coat of the Grand Guard, despite her pale Gristol complexion. She had bright blue eyes and pretty lips that smiled easily. And her appeal was not limited to her face. Most people would agree that the exercise required of her position suited her quite well, and they would say as much, with varying styles of language, and varying amounts of profanity.

But Lady Jessamine was also quick and clever and well-read, even though she came from an unremarkable middle-class background with no outstanding education. She was easy company, always willing to share a joke or a story, and she loved to dance. During her very first year in Serkonos, she had won the Blade Verbena, defeating opponents who were larger, stronger, and more experienced than her, to the roars and cheers of an adoring crowd. But no matter what, when people had reason to list her accomplishments, they always started and ended their list by saying, _oh, Lady Jessamine, she’s very pretty._

And Corvo knew it from the moment they were introduced in the training yard one day, after she’d been given an officer’s commission in the Grand Guard. It was hard to deny. Perhaps that was why people said it so often, because it was hard to deny.

Perhaps everyone else saw what affection might grow between the two of them, before that affection even existed. Or perhaps they only saw the attraction, but they did not know how deep it would grow. Because Corvo did not fall in love with her at first sight. The simple acknowledgment that she was lovely was not the same thing as being in love.

That came later. Not much later, but later.

About a year after appointing Jessamine as his Lady Protector, the Lady Regent and Crown Prince decided that it was time for Corvo’s coronation. He’d received enough formal education and he had shadowed his mother in parliament and court enough to know what was expected of him. And he was a young man, about to enter the prime of his life, so there really was no better time.

A parade was planned throughout the city for the morning before the coronation, which was to be held directly at noon in the Grand Palace. Corvo was to be in the middle of the parade, surrounded by soldiers and members of the Elite Gramd Guard and Overseers and musicians, all of them led by dancers and children passing out fragrant flowers to the assembled crowd. He did his best to look pleasant and relaxed, to smile and wave to the people in the city, but a parade surrounded by thousands of people was the opposite of where Corvo was comfortable. He’d never liked crowds, and he never liked having the people’s attention linger too long on him, unless he had something important to say. The fact he was wearing a heavy, embroidered cape and the towering Imperial Crown while riding in an ancient and uncomfortable carriage next to his mother, who was wearing an equally elaborate costume, did not help.

The parade went off with one single hitch. While they were traveling southwards along the Grand Serkonan Canal, Jessamine vanished for one moment. Corvo had been turned to face the crowd at one side, and when he looked back to where Jessamine was riding on the side of the carriage, she was not there. Corvo had hardly even realized she was gone, among the chaos of the thrumming crowd and the overwhelming noise when she made a running jump from the ground and returned to her spot on the side of the carriage. She looked at him once, and he knew, of course he knew that she had just stopped another attempt on his life that he’d never even been aware of. Then those bright blue eyes of hers looked across the carriage to Lady Alcaldo, his mother’s Lady Protector. They nodded to each other once, and turned their eyes back to the crowd.

Corvo gave a quick look and wave to the people gathered along the side of the canal and turned back to Jessamine. Her face was as calm as ever, but on the back of her right hand, beaded along the leather of her glove, was blood—not hers, presumably. Either she didn’t care about it or she didn’t know about it, but Corvo could clearly see it on her hand where it gripped the edge of the ceremonial carriage.

Without thinking, Corovo reached into the pocket of the newly tailored trousers that he wore beneath his cape, and withdrew a handkerchief. Delicately, he pressed the edge of the clean white cotton against the glove, and blotted the blood from her hand.

Her head snapped to his direction. She did not look offended or surprised that he had touched her, but she did look confused as he cleaned the blood away. He hesitated for a moment, certain he had done something wrong without knowing it, and then Jessamine’s look softened. Her jaw dropped, and then her lips, and she looked like she was going to say something, until Corvo withdrew his hand.

And then she turned her attention back to the crowd, and Corvo tried to ignore the twisting feeling in his gut.

That night, they each lay in their beds, exhausted from the day’s chaos. As they tried to relax, all they could hear were the echoes of the crowd’s roars and cheers within their head. They realized then, that that moment was when they discovered that what they felt for each other went beyond normal admiration for the other’s obvious character or charm. It was the first time that either one had been able to put a name to what they felt.

And their thoughts made them both afraid.

It was the first time that Corvo felt the impulse to run his thumb along her cheek, and kiss her perfect lips. But Corvo didn’t want to say anything. He was her Emperor, how could he suggest anything without it seeming like a veiled command? He had no desire to possess her, to rule over her like she was just another nepotistic fool in a government position she was vastly under-qualified for, but Corvo wasn’t certain that _she_ could be certain that he had no desire to control her. Sure, they knew each other very well, but was there ever a point where they could be two people who loved each other, rather than an Emperor and his Lady Protector? Corvo couldn’t imagine being so lucky.

It was the first time that Jessamine had imagined laying her head on his broad shoulders as they sat beside one another, of holding one of his hands in hers, pressing a kiss to every knuckle. But she was no one, and no one would approve of her being anything other than Corvo’s sword and shield. The Emperor needed an Empress, not a very lucky soldier who had risen to the top with some quick thinking and a decent amount of skill. How could she say anything to him, when it was certain that such a relationship would be doomed?

The following morning, on their first day of being Emperor and the Emperor’s Lady Protector, they had each decided to ignore their own feelings. Jessamine awoke at dawn that morning after a night of fitful dreams with her conviction in her chest. Corvo decided he would not act upon his feelings the moment Jessamine after joined him at breakfast, and he felt his heart swell at the very sight of her, yawning and bleary-eyed in her pristine uniform.

For two years, they hid their thoughts away. For two years, Jessamine stayed by Corvo’s side as he presided over Parliament and held meetings with his private court. They sat side by side and smoked from a pipe and drank wine together after long days, and occasionally, they played music for one another — Corvo on the shining black piano, and Jess on the golden harp.

Occasionally, they danced together. At formal state dinners, in front of all of the Royal Household’s guests, or alone in one of the Palace parlors, to the thin, tinny music of an audiograph. They danced, hands held, arms wrapped around each other, until one of them choked up, thanked the other for the dance, and said goodnight.

Every so often, one of them considered breaking the silence. Corvo, every time his heart stuttered at the sound of her perfect laugh, or when she effortlessly halted an attack on his life. Jessamine, every time she saw Corvo’s shoulders relax and as he ran his fingers through his dark hair after a stressful meeting, and every time he rejected the obvious overtures of another suitor at a party. The temptation was there, but it was never strong enough to overcome their fear.

Once or twice, they thought of simply leaving. After too many drinks, too much work, or too long of a day, the burden of their feelings just seemed like another perpetual chore they couldn’t escape from. Corvo thought about abdicating, or faking his death — let his distant cousins in Cullero have the throne, and he’ll have Jessamine and a quiet vineyard in the country to live out the rest of their long lives. Another time, Jessamine considered becoming the very first Royal Protector to simply quit their job and run away in shame.

But the moment would pass. Good or bad, for two whole years at each other’s side, they would set their resolve and find it within themselves to go on as they had been, suffering in silence and being thankful just to be there.

It was Jessamine that finally breached the silence, but she didn’t do it entirely on her own.

On the first day of the Month of Rain, a little over two years after his coronation and three years after appointing Jessamine as his Royal Protector, Corvo went to bed early. It was out of character for him, but understandable. A frustrating and repetitive argument had broken out in Parliament over the conditions in the silver mines, and left him with a headache so bad it was if his head had split open and the Void itself came pouring out. When they’d gotten back from the parliament building, he’d asked for a bath as hot as anyone could stand, a generous glass of wine, and to be left undisturbed until the next morning. Corvo very rarely had any kind of headache at all and almost never took ill, so everyone in the Palace had been concerned, but chose to respect his wishes by giving him total solitude to recover.

That left the Dowager Queen Paloma, her Lady Protector Alcaldo, and Jessamine to fill a quiet evening on their own in the family quarters. And it was quiet, and peaceful as well, up to a certain point.

“You know,” Paloma said, her hands busy embroidering a new handkerchief for her son. Paloma was an excellent seamstress and a dab hand at embroidery. Crafting and sewing was her vice, in much the way others used whiskey and cigars to relax at the end of the day. “I’ve drafted a new piece of legislation to present to parliament soon. Nothing major.”

“Oh?” Jessamine asked absently. She’d just finished a few scales and exercises on the harp, and was reading through a new piece of sheet music.

“Yes. It’s a protocol for creating a position for a temporary Lord or Lady Protector, and a guide for the other security measures that will need to be changed when you’re pregnant. My son will need an heir or two, you know.”

Jessamine had never been one to blush, but her face felt like it was ready to burst into flames as Paloma and Lady Alcaldo stopped what they were doing and studied her face, looking of rant sign that the older woman was joking — or worse, that she really meant what she was saying.

“Paloma,” she whispered, not knowing what else to say. This conversation was never supposed to happen. No one was ever supposed to know how she felt. She had tried so hard to never look too fondly at Corvo, or behave inappropriately. When had she failed? What had she done to betray herself?

“I have had more than two years to think about this. I believe I know what it is you are afraid of, my dear. All of your fears have solutions — laws can be passed, nobility can be threatened and cajoled, and people can be hired to protect you, my son, and your children, should you be so blessed. I believe it may even be more efficient to combine the roles of Royal Protector and Consort, at least in some situations.”

She cast her eyes back to her embroidery, pulling blood-red thread through stark white fabric, even as she continued to speak.

“Whatever has kept my son silent for so long, that I could not guess. His reasons are almost certainly thinly-veiled excuses for his own fear. That’s why you’ll have to be the first to say something to him, to shock him out of it. Then, the two of you can get out of this silly rut you’re in, and stop being so miserable.”

Lady Alcaldo set her book down, and stood up. She went to look out one of the Palace windows, giving the other two a hint of privacy.

Staring at the Dowager Queen, Jessamine dropped her sheet music onto the music stand, and struggled to find even a passing word to say.

“Paloma,” is all she managed again. Her words had failed her. Jess tried to ignore her panicked heartbeat speeding up. Now was not the time to start shaking or shuddering.

The older woman shook her head in despair.

“No. You do not have to have to tell me a single thing. Talk to my son, as soon as you can—but not yet, he was not lying about that headache. Talk to him tomorrow, or the day after, perhaps even the day after that, but Outsider’s eyes, my girl, do not wait so long. The two of you deserve to find your happiness.”

Jessamine nodded, stood, and promptly said goodnight to the Dowager Queen and Lady Protector Alcaldo, her eyes on her feet as she left the sitting room. She walked directly to her bedroom, letting the Palace Guards know as she passed that she would be going to sleep and that they would be responsible for the Emperor’s safety until she woke, as she’d done every night for three years.

She removed her uniform and dressed in one of her usual frilly nightgowns, and crawled onto the wide, plush bed, cursing Serkonos’ balmy weather. She wanted nothing more than to pull a pile of blankets over her head and feel sorry for herself in the perfect darkness, but it was far too hot for that. Even with the breeze coming off of the endless sea blowing through her window, it was far too hot and she spent an indeterminate amount of time tossing and turning. Frustrated, she climbed out of bed again, and went to the washstand along the south wall of her room. She’d barely done more than splash some water on her face before crawling into bed, so the jug was still full. She dropped a washrag in the cool water, wrung it out, draped it around the back of her neck, and collapsed face down on her bed.

Before she fell asleep, one last thought occurred to her.

If anyone could tell that Corvo felt something for her, it would be Paloma. No one could read the Emperor better than the Dowager Empress. She was an honest, formidable woman, and a wonderful mother. She wouldn’t toy with Jess, and she would not toy with Corvo.

Jess drifted off to a feather-light sleep, until she was woken by the sound of footsteps walking past her door. She snapped up, and turned the knob to light the oil lamp on her bedside table so she could see the clock at the other end of her room in the pitch-darkness. It was almost 2:30 in the morning.

And she knew the sound of those footsteps as well as she knew her own.

Her one-sided conversation with Paloma had consumed her thoughts before she fell asleep, but at that moment, she hardly remembered it. She acted entirely on instinct as she climbed out of bed, pulled on her soft cotton dressing gown and slippers, and took her lamp and left her room.

Two guards in the hall outside saw her as soon as she crossed over the threshold of her door, and informed her that the Emperor had gone to the roof for some fresh air. A third guard had followed after him. Jessamine thanked them, and turned down the hall to the bookshelf that concealed the secret staircase that led to the roof

Corvo had always liked the roof. He’d always liked the peace and quiet that came with being tucked away in some high-up place, and had once confessed that he and his mother had spent a lot of time up there after the assassination of his father and sister. He went there when he was upset, or when he just needed a moment to breathe freely without anyone’s eyes lingering on him. Jessamine didn’t mind, even if there was a certain chance that he might be cornered on a roof, with no chance of escape, if some particularly ambitious or acrobatic assassin came along. She liked the peace too.

When she opened the door at the top of the stairs and let herself onto the roof, she saw Corvo standing at the southern parapet, staring up at the sky. She approached the guard standing a few feet behind Corvo, and told him to guard the door — that she, despite being armed with nothing beyond an oil lamp, would guard the Emperor, as was her duty.

An assassination was not the greatest threat for what might happen on the rooftop, she thought, as her conversation with Lady Paloma and her earlier turmoil caught up with her. Heartbreak and embarrassment were far more likely. But she was Jessamine Kaldwin. She was not the first-ever Gristol-born Royal Protector in history for nothing. She was not one of the youngest winners the Blade Verbena has ever seen for nothing. She had not fought for so long for nothing.

And if nothing else, she could always quit her job and run away. Certainly, no one in Tyvia would recognize that she was the silly, cowardly former Royal Protector, would they?

So she walked up to the parapet, situating herself at Corvo’s side. The light from her lamp was glowing blue and casting light onto her path, and she hoped that was enough of a warning to Corvo that someone was approaching because he made no acknowledgment that anyone was there. When she reached the short stone wall, she set her lamp at her feet, and looked up at what had captured Corvo’s attention.

Halfway to the zenith of the sky, above the sea to the south, was a constellation. The Swan, a figure of stars that Jessamine always thought looked more like the number 2 than a bird. There were two swans on the Kaldwin family crest. They had once been far richer and more influential in Gristol society, a regular feature among the island’s nobility, until their fortune was divided in a dispute over an inheritance. But they still had a family crest as a relic of their former nobility, a lovely shade of blue-green with two golden swans.

A swan, a raven, and a dove, all in one palace. Perhaps that’s why they all liked the roof so much.

“How are you feeling?” Jess asked.

Corvo looked down from the sky, but he did not look at her. His eyes focused on the horizon, far in the distance.

“Much better.” He said, brushing a lock of his dark hair behind his ear. Unlike her, he was not in pajamas—no, he was already halfway dressed for the day. He was wearing well-tailored trousers and a clean shirt that was open at the neck, with no coat and no shoes. And his hair was down, rather than being tied back at the nape of his neck.

Jess almost hated how handsome he looked this way. Far from disheveled, but it was the most casual and relaxed she’d ever seen him. It was how he always looked as he stretched out across the couch in his bedroom when he invited her in for some wine or her favorite Dunwall whiskey after a long day. She could never take her eyes off of the hollow of his throat that the open shirt revealed, and she resented it, resented the temptation it presented, resented how she fell prey to it everytime

“But I fell asleep too early.” He continued. Jessamine nearly forgot that she had asked him a question. “I woke up around half an hour ago. Falling asleep again seemed impossible, so I came up here.”

“You’ve been thinking?”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

“Unfortunately, everything.”

He sighed, and neither one said anything else for a moment. A breeze blew off of the ocean and brought with it the kind of chill that Jessamine had expected from the Month of Rain. She was not cold, but took one step to the side, closer to Corvo, anyway. The other guard on the roof was only twenty or so feet away, but standing shoulder to shoulder with Corvo made her feel like she had a little more privacy. She needed privacy to think.

These quiet, solitary moments with Corvo always made her yearn for more. Like the moments in his room, when she could not tear her eyes from his throat, and he never noticed because his eyes were closed because it was the first moment he had to relax all day. Or when they walked out of Parliament, because the Emperor was always the last to arrive and the first to leave, and the little moments they had to laugh and ridicule the puffed-up fools in Parliament as they departed for the Palace in the electric carriage. It was one of their few chances to laugh and joke in public when no one was around to see their Emperor act so casually. She dreaded when those moments had to end.

This moment, at least, would end when she said it would end. 

She could ask Corvo to go back inside of the Palace, so she could return to bed without worrying about his safety.

She could forget everything Paloma had told her that evening.

She could ignore the twisting feeling in her chest, push it down like she had every other day. She could ignore the urge to hold his hand or kiss his neck forever.

She could do none of those things. She could ignore her fear, just as she had the first time she picked up a blade and had her father teach her to wield it. She could ignore her fear, as she had when she asked to be transferred to Skeronos when she realized there was nothing left for her in Dunwall. She could ignore her fear, as she had before facing her first opponent in the Blade Verbena, when she nearly dropped out of the competition from nerves—and then she became the champion.

The words came to her before she could even decide if she was going to speak.

“I’ve been thinking as well.”

Corvo hummed, and finally, he looked at her. The pale lighting of the oil lamp cast strange shadows upon his face, but his face was as relaxed and as unassuming as it ever was when they were alone together.

“I was thinking,” say the words, Jessamine, “I was thinking that the Emperors and Empresses of the Isles have had Royal Protectors for hundreds of years, since the end of the War of the Four Crowns. I was just wondering whether or not I was the first Protector to fall,” her tongue catches in her throat, but still she speaks, her voice thick, “in love with my charge.”

She says it, and Corvo’s face remains as placid and staid as ever. He shows no signs of having understood what she said, no sign of elation or revulsion or confusion at her words. He just stares at the pale stone of the rooftop visible past her shoulder.

She watches, and waits, her stomach fluttering as she waits for his answer. When the answer does come. Jess is too distracted by her own fear to realize that Corvo’s lips had parted and that his breathing had come to an abrupt stop.

“I have some of the journals of past Emperors and Empresses.” He said, his voice as steady and even as if he was discussing nothing more interesting than the weather. “I can promise you that I’m not the first to fall in love with my Royal Protector.”

His voice was low, but she felt every word.

And then Jessamine could forgive Corvo for his silence but a moment before, because she was left at a loss for words as well. For some reason, she decided to nod, as if that were an appropriate reaction to the man she loved telling her that her feelings were returned. Feeling absurd, she laughed, and looked down at her feet, unable to look at Corvo’s growing smile or the shining light in his eyes without feeling like her chest was about to burst.

She let out a shuddering breath, and realized that her hands were shaking at her side, and she never even noticed. And she didn’t notice that she must have said it out loud, because immediately, both of her hands were lifted from her side, and they were each pressed the center of Corvo’s chest, covered by both of his own warm hands. She turned to face him, and leaned forward, ever slightly.

“I’ve loved you and wanted you for so long,” Corvo whispered, smiling again as Jessamine began to sweep one thumb back and forth across the palm of his hand, simply because she could. His answer could not be more perfect. “But this… won’t be easy.”

“I know,” Jess replied, smiling sweetly up at him. “But your mother’s already drafted some legislation to make things easier.”

He freezes, every muscle in his body going tense as his smile falls into the usual, severe look he wears when going to parties he doesn’t want to attend.

“My mother?”

Jessamine tried not to smile too much, so she forced her smile into a teasing little frown.

“She may have spoken to me this evening, and may have managed to… put some of my fears to rest.”

Corvo scoffed, and briefly, rested his forehead against hers, before pulling away to laugh.

“I probably need to thank her for that. I don’t want to, but I should. And I know what I’m afraid of, but what were you concerned about, darling?”

“ _Darling_? She scoffed. 

“I was just trying it out. Would you prefer _my_ _love_?”

“When you say it, yes.” Jess, her face already aching from smiling more than she could ever remember, pulled Corvo’s hands from his chest in order to blindly press a kiss to the back of one of his hands. Then, somehow, she stepped even closer into him, leaving their arms tucked between their chests, hands still intertwined. But she needed to answer his question. “I was afraid… that you need a Queen, and I cannot be both a consort and your Lady Protector. I don’t want to have to choose. I’m not a diplomat, or a politician, and I like being at your side.”

“I’ll make sure you never have to choose. You can be both. I will do my very best to make sure of it.” He whispered, squeezing her hand.

“I know. Your mother said essentially the same thing. And what were you worried about?” She asked, and she tried to keep her voice gentle, but she had wanted to know, desperately, why he hadn’t said anything for so long.

Corvo cast his eyes up, back to the sky.

“I didn’t want you to do anything simply because I was the Emperor. I’ve heard too many stories of people in Parliament coercing their maids and guards into relationships, and it turns my stomach. I know it wouldn’t be quite the same with us, because we have never merely been an employer and an employee. And there were times that I thought that maybe you had feelings for me that had nothing to do with me being Emperor, but then I worried about what might happen if things between us soured. I didn’t want to lose you as my protector, or as my friend. I suppose it’s not just the Emperor that has to worry about that.” He took a deep breath and looked back down. His eyes were sharp. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a coward.”

“No,” she said immediately. “No apologies. Not now.” Maybe someday they would have to talk about the years spent pining for each other, but Jessamine wasn’t interested in anything other than the present moment. 

Corvo shook his head, and looked at her face in the pale blue light. His face relaxed with every second he looked at her. And then he took half of a step back, pulling away from her just the slightest, and dropped her hands from his.

“It’s late. I may not be tired, but neither of us should stay out here all night. I want you to come to my room.”

She cannot resist teasing him, as if he was completely oblivious to the way she’d been standing and the way she’d been looking at him. In her opinion, they had missed a step or two.

“Why, Your Majesty, you haven’t even kissed me yet, and you’re already asking me—“

He interrupted her in the most perfect way. Spurned on, he wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him, and he kissed her. Jessamine could hardly even tell if it was real or not before he spun her with a hand on her hips, just like when they danced, and he pushed her back against the stone parapet. He pulled her upwards, onto her toes to bridge the distance between them, and brushed the tips of his fingers along her jaw as he pressed his lips to hers.

She should tease him more often.

He pulled away slowly, and Jessamine opened her eyes just wide enough to see that Corvo was looking at her, his dark eyes almost nervous. She doesn’t know why he would feel nervous now, once things were so close to a resolution. But she could calm his fears.

“Let’s go to your room.” She murmured, blindly searching for his hand with hers, and pulling him to budge from their spot.

He did not budge as she pulled.

“I just want to hold you. Tonight.” He said holding his head high and setting his jaw. Did he expect her to resist? Or to reject that? Did he think she was going to be picky about how they spent their time together?

“Wonderful.” She said, pulling again, and again, Corvo did not move. But this time, he bent down to retrieve the oil lamp, and then followed after her willingly. Jess kept turning around as she walked across the rooftop, just to look at him, at his broad shoulders and strong arms and that damnable open collar of his shirt. “You can start making up for the years worth of nights I’ve spent without you.”

“It may take me some time to repay my debts, but I’ll do my best, love.”

They walked, hand in hand and side by side, to the door and down the stairs, having not a single care for the guard they had stationed at the door or his confused look. They passed by the two guards in the family quarters and never even noticed their quizzical expressions or their shared cough as the two of them strolled into Corvo’s room together. The Outsider himself could have appeared in the Grand Palace, and neither Corvo nor Jessamine would have noticed. 

Corvo had said he wasn’t tired, but after little while, both he and Jessamine dozed off on his bed, Jessamine’s head on his stomach, his hand brushing through her dark hair. 

In the morning, neither one cared about keeping up appearances when Corvo called for two breakfast trays to be delivered to his room, or when the maid who was supposed to deliver a freshly laundered linen shirt and trousers to Jessamine found the Lady Protector’s room empty and went searching for her.

Within a few scant hours after dawn that morning, the servants all knew. As they left the Palace and met the servants of other noble houses at the fish market or at the grocer’s, they shared with them the gossip that was rampant in the royal household. Soon, the servants of other noble houses spread word to their employers, who shared it and corroborated it among themselves. By the end of the week, everyone knew the Emperor and his Lady Protector were romantically entangled. With the speculation came stories — some people insisted that they had known all along that Emperor Attano and Lady Kaldwin were together, so what do you mean it’s news? Others insisted that they knew a dramatic first-time confession of their love had occurred in the Palace, after the Lady Protector saved the Emperor from a dozen assassins in the middle of the night.

Lady Paloma was content to ignore it all. Until they were going to announce an engagement or that they were expecting a child, she didn’t much care what everyone said about her son and his Royal Protector. She was simply content to see them be happy, and to feel smug about her part in it all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dunwall had as many petty criminals as it did plague rats. The Crowns might not have as many members or as many supernatural powers as some of the others, but their leader is determined she'll come out on top. This time, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crime Lord/Gang AU!

No one had expected them to move into the Draper's Ward. It was, admittedly, a bit of an impulsive decision from Jessamine—or it appeared to be impulsive. They had been comfortably situated on the fringes of the Estate District, in a nice old mansion whose previous owners had gone mysteriously missing decades before. They’d moved in during the early days of Euhorn’s leadership, and when Jess took charge, she hadn’t been inclined to move. But that changed.

Since the Eels and the Hatters had so severely weakened each other with their own petty little fights, they’d cleared both gangs out without a single casualty. On their end, at least. All it had taken were a few letters in Jessamine’s distinctive, refined hand, one sent to the waterfront and the other sent to the Textile Mill, offering an alliance with each of the gangs. A few of the best fighters laid the trap, and within the course of an afternoon, the Draper’s Ward belonged to the Crowns.

The Draper’s Ward would be good for them. They needed a little more room to stretch out, nowadays. They’d nearly doubled in number since Jess took over, and they were running out of room for beds in their old mansion. And they needed far more space for their armory and practice grounds than they had in their old home, or could possibly make. Also, something that was a little more defensible from rats didn’t hurt.

And the Draper’s Ward… was more conveniently located. Still on the river, but a little further from Dunwall Tower and the Emperor’s ilk. There was a little more room to breathe by the river.

Besides, many of the tailors and seamstresses of the ward had left behind some wonderful new suits and coats when they left. Jessamine’s wardrobe had tripled overnight, and she was honestly rather tickled about it.

That she’d done all of this while Corvo was on his tour of the other Isles was the real mystery. It was risky. It was bold. Euhorn’s old catchphrase, “the boldest measures are the safest,” was not one that Jessamine necessarily lived by. It was very strange that she would make such a major move while Corvo was gone, arranging for ways that they could still engage in some black market trade overseas while the Navy was preparing to blockade the city. She rarely left their compound without Corvo, never mind initiating a full takedown of two other gangs.

But surely she had a reason. And she would tell him, eventually. Jess didn’t like to share her ideas with anyone, even Corvo, until they were fully developed plans. So he would wait. 

He didn't need to wait all that long.

It was after dinner on his third night back from his trip abroad that she told him. Corvo was supervising some of the newer members of the gang as they made attempts to rat-proof their new homes on the waterfront. He’d just pointed out the third broken ventilation grate that rest of them had not seen when Emily came to fetch him. She’d done her best to sneak up on him, and nearly had. Corvo still pretended to be surprised when she ran at him and jumped on his back.

“Mother needs to see you,” she said, her smile bright as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

Corvo said goodnight to the crew as they patched over the rat-sized holes, and reminded them one last time to barricade the entrances to the sewers before, Emily still on his back, he crossed the street. They traveled up three sets of stairs, unlocking a door with a unique lock at each level. On the top floor, in a room with no windows, Jessamine had set up her office. She was sitting in a chair with a wobbly leg at a desk made from three smaller tables pushed together, sipping from a glass of her favorite whiskey. She looked as powerful and regal as ever, despite the circumstances.

She spared a warm smile for Corvo as he walked in, their daughter on his back.

“Emily, dear,” she said, setting her glass down. “Thank you. Now…”

“I know, I know.” Emily released her arms, and dropped to the ground. With a dramatic sigh, she straightened out the wrinkles in her frilly white suit and turned to go. “I can’t hear the important adult conversation, go find something to do to stay out of your way, blah blah blah.”

Jess’s face turned indulgent as Corvo stifled his own laugh. Emily was halfway through the door when her mother said, “Wait, Em. Why don’t you go do a few warm-ups on your piano? You can play that new song for Corvo, the one that you learned while he was away. And I know you have not practiced today.”

“Fine.” She mumbled, not sparing a second glance for her parents as she left, the door falling shut and locking behind her. Corvo crossed the room and leaned against Jess’s makeshift desk as she poured a second glass of whiskey for him. He took it and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

Jess finally spoke just as the muffled sounds of piano scales drifted up from the floor below.

"I'm sure you could tell that I've been thinking about something since you've gotten home." She said, her tone warm and steady, despite the sullen expression in her eyes. She offered a weak, apologetic smile to Corvo, and set her shoulders.

Corvo nodded, absentmindedly. He knew how she worked, after so long together. She didn't need to apologize to him.

“While you were gone… I was meeting with some of our usual smugglers, in a pub across the river. I wanted to make sure that your journey wasn’t useless, and that we would still have people who were willing to transport goods out of the city to our buyers. While I was there, I met a ship captain I’d never met before. He seemed even more disreputable than we usually deal with. He was very drunk, and there was something about him…” She took another sip, and pushed her chair a little further back, so she could see Corvo’s face a little more clearly without straining her neck.

“He was very drunk. And regretful, of something. He looked panicked. So I started talking to him. He confessed that, more than two years ago, Emperor Hiram himself hired this man to sail to one of the islands off of Pandyssia, and pick up more than five hundred Bull Rats to bring back to Dunwall. He told me about how they’d taken former prisoners on board the ship so that they could feed those men to the rats in order to keep them alive for the journey back. Then the crew delivered the rats to the Emperor's men, and they killed each and every one of the crew members, aside from the captain. He was paid handsomely but spent all of his money on whiskey and women at the Golden Cat. He told me himself that he wanted to come clean, as more and more people died from this plague. He asked me if I knew anyone at any of the city’s newspapers that he might be able to approach to tell his story. I don’t know any that are still alive, so I couldn’t help him yet.

“But I had people following him. Just last week, members of the City Watch broke into his home. They killed him in the process of arresting him. The newspapers said it was an accident, but Burrow’s bootlickers at the Courier have never known how to spin a convincing lie.”

She paused, just long enough for all of Corvo’s thoughts to meld together.

It made sense. Well, no, it didn't make any sense for an emperor to import uncontrollable pests from Pandyssia, of all Outsider cursed places, but it sounded like something Burrows would do. The man was vain, impulsive, and neurotic. For the past few years, he'd been rallying against the city's impoverished, enacting harebrained schemes and bribing Parliament into passing laws that only ended up driving more and more of his own subjects into abject poverty. Killing off half of the city seemed, to Corvo, to be the perfect addition to Burrows' disastrous legacy.

The rat plague had been bad for business. And Jessamine was an expert at holding a grudge.

“Burrows brought the plague in, and you want him gone.”

Jess looks startled that he cut to the quick so easily, but her voice is strong when she says “yes.”

Years before, after the death of the Empress Larisa Olaskir, Euhorn Kaldwin had been days away from being crowned Emperor as her heir when Hadley Burrows, a relatively obscure army officer, came forward and announced that he was the rightful heir to the throne. He produced documents, letters sent by the late Emperor Alexy Olaskir, proving that Hadley was his illegitimate son, that he wished to legitimize his son before he died, and that he was deprived of the chance to do so by his sickness and death. Parliament had immediately pivoted, for some unknown and unsavory reason, and anointed Hadley Burrows as the new Emperor. His son, Hiram had preceded him on the throne.

It wasn’t that Jessamine desired to live in that alternative world, wherein she was the Empress. She always thought that her older half-sister, Delilah, would have ended up as Empress anyway — unless, as Emperor, her father would have chosen to hide her away. And it wasn’t as if she really wanted that power — she knew what power was like. Being the leader of the Crowns was not easy, so she understood that running the Empire, and balancing the interests of the Four Isles, would be infinitely more difficult. Only a fool would desire that burden and the many constraints that came with it.

But Jessamine, with her unique perspective, knew that Burrows was a shitty emperor, and knew that she could have done better. Her father could have done better.

Even Delilah—well. Things would have been about the same if Delilah were Empress.

It wasn’t envy that led Jessamine to hate Hiram Burrows, or some grudge she'd inherited from her father. It was a kind of resentment that can only be born from the understanding that another person is completely and utterly incompetent at their very important job.

“How?” Corvo asked, already thinking of everything he might do in order to help Jessamine. Whatever it was, he would do it. She just needed to tell him how.

With a faint smile, Jessamine pulled the lid off of a lockbox that could always be found at the corner of her desk, and pulled a letter from inside. It was only a draft—it wasn’t on the expensive paper that Jessamine used for formal correspondence. So Corvo took it, took another sip of his Distillery District whiskey, and read.

Corvo was a quiet man. He always had been, from his time running with the gangs back in Karnaca, or maybe even as a kid sneaking around the apartment at night to find the hidden sweets. He could take on three City Watch in head-on combat, but he didn’t like to. He preferred to handle things quietly and simply. He walked quietly, and spoke quietly, and he never coughed or sneezed at an inopportune time. He was usually very good at controlling his tongue, but, by the time he’d read the first paragraph, he nearly cried, or maybe groaned, in confusion and frustration.

“Jess—”

“Finish reading it, please, dear.”

So he did.

Jessamine had written to the Knife of Dunwall himself, proposing an alliance. Duad and his team of heretical assassins would probably be the only gang in the city that had the kind of talent and resources that would help while going toe-to-toe with the Emperor and his army and his police. But to suggest cooperation with a man who acted so entirely in his own interests was trouble. Daud was brutal, and was driven by money and his own freedom. He could not be counted on to be faithful to a cause.

But what use was an assassin in a city where everyone was dead? Daud could either help end the rat plague and bring the man who created it to justice, or he could relocate his entire gang, and try to get a foothold in another city. But what other cities were there that were large enough to need a mercenary gang that didn’t already have one? Daud had a stake in keeping Dunwall alive.

The fact that Jessamine was suggesting that, as a sign of trust, the Crowns would help the Whalers take down Daud’s sworn enemy, the Brigmore Witches, was the crux of the matter. It was a very troubling crux.

Why wouldn’t she try and ally herself with Delilah? The half-sisters couldn’t stand each other, but they both despised Burrows. They could enter into an alliance knowing that their end-goals were the same, even if they did not agree on anything else. The same could not be said for Daud.

“Jess…”

She shook her head.

“My sister and her witches are chaotic heretics. They act erratically, and selfishly. Daud and his Whalers would be easier to understand. They’re assassins and mercenaries, occasionally bounty hunters. They’re motivated by money, and that means they’re motivated by survival. And whatever happens to Burrows, and whoever takes over after him, I would much rather live in a Dunwall with Daud than a Dunwall with Delilah.”

She always made everything sound so reasonable; Corvo nearly hated it. It was probably the gentle, noble elocution and the confident set of her shoulders. Her father had never really cast aside his noble mannerisms, and his daughter had been given as genteel an education as any member of Dunwall’s elite. It certainly made her stand out among all of the other gang leaders in the city. Even as more and more people of all backgrounds turned to crime to provide food and shelter for themselves in the increasingly troubled city, the Kaldwins were different.

“You’re certain.” He said. It was not a question.

“Yes.”

Corvo leaned further down against the desk and startled when his weight pushed the desk away a few inches. Corvo immediately scowled and scrambled to right himself, while Jessamine laughed. She stood up, and gently pulled him by the shoulders to sit in her chair, laughing all the while. She rather primly sat on his lap, her legs twisted sideways, and laid her hands on his chest, just below his shoulders and the epaulets on the long blue coat he always wore.

He stared at her, his face stern but for the light in his eyes until her laughter ceased.

“Do you have a plan for how you would like to approach Daud?”

“Of course.” She said, leaning a little further back. “We’ve seen some of his people hanging around the Legal District over the past week—I’m not sure if they’re casing the place, or if they’re hoping to move in to one of the abandoned apartments. Considering the risk, I imagine they’re going after Timish rather than trying to make him their new neighbor.

“Either way, I’ve decided to leave him a gift with a message somewhere in the area. We have two bone charms and a rune in the safe. His type always manages to find heretical things like that. We’ll find an empty apartment near Timish, or clear one out, place our gift and message out in the open, and leave it inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t have his abilities. In the message, we’ll invite him to some neutral area, at the place and date of his choosing. We need to make a show of faith to let him know we’re not planning an ambush.”

“An ambush like you had planned for the two other gangs you just eliminated? How are you going to convince him he’s not going to get the same treatment as the Eels and Hatters?”

Her eyes narrow and her hands come to a halt on the edge of Corvo’s lapel. Corvo knows that she’s not displeased with him, so much as she is disappointed he felt the need to even ask. As her right hand, it’s his job to ask.

“I’ll acknowledge what we did. I won’t try to pretend it hasn’t happened. And I was thinking I might have the two of us go, alone, to meet him and remind Daud that I would not risk my daughter becoming an orphan in order to pull off some scheme against him.”

It was well known what Jessamine had done for the sake of her daughter in the past. That should be a convincing display of her hand.

“When will you tell him you’ll offer to help get rid of Delilah?”

She hesitated, and her eyes flickered down to the ground, unfocusing as she thought.

“I’m going to hint at having something significant to offer him, but I’m not going to risk putting my offer in writing. I don’t think he would believe it if I did.”

Probably not.

That was always the worst part of her feud with Delilah. Euhorn had always prized family above everything else. Family, whether it was the one you were born into, or the one you made, or some combination of both, was the central pillar of life. Euhorn had never meant for his decision in picking Jess as his successor to drive Delilah away. Delilah had always seemed ambivalent about leadership, anyway. But Delilah left when Euhorn announced Jess would follow him as the leader of the Crowns. Apparently, she had always assumed the mantle of leadership would be hers, whether she really wanted it or not, and was furious when her sister “usurped” her title.

A few years afterward, she showed up on the fringes of Dunwall’s underground, a witch, with a gang of other witches following in her shadow. She and Jess had been circling each other, and snarling, like territorial dogs just waiting for the other one to try and take their first bite ever since. They hadn’t said a single word to each other, in the meantime, but they each understood the other’s thoughts and feelings perfectly.

Corvo had been there, for the start of the rift. He’d been in Dunwall less than a year, sent as a gift from the Duke of Serkonos to appease the Emperor for something or another, when he deserted from the City Watch. Corvo couldn’t stand to follow the orders of such a horrendous, selfish man, so he left. He left with nowhere to go and nothing but his uniform, weapons, and a third of his previous year’s salary in savings. One chance meeting on the very next day with a member of the Crowns he’d met in a back alley while he was hiding from some of Burrow’s men, and Corvo had been a member of the gang ever since.

So he’d been there, at the dinner where Euhorn announced that Jessamine would succeed him. It had surprised no one but Delilah, who stormed out of the room, cursing her father and sister and the Emperor too, for good measure. It was Jessamine who had tried to follow her, and Jessamine who had tried and failed to stop her.

It was Corvo who held Jessamine as she cried into his shoulder that night.

And Corvo had been there the first time Delilah left a message for Jess, to let her know she was back in the city. She’d left an outrageous painting of Jessamine holding a swaddled baby in an abandoned guardhouse near the Crowns’ old mansion. The painting had been nestled among briars and massive roses, ones that certainly should not have been growing on the second floor of a stone building. Jess had been pregnant with Emily at the time, a very carefully guarded secret that they believed no one outside of the Crowns knew.

Corvo didn’t know a thing about witches or heresy. Perhaps he should have spent more time listening to the Overseers who preached in the street of Karnaca, but even as a child, he knew he didn’t really want to get mixed up in either group. Daud and his people, they could likely avoid them once this was all over. Delilah and her witches had proven time and time again that they would not leave the Crowns alone for long.

As always, Jess had clearly thought everything through. She was right. It would be risky. They would likely have to go after Delilah first in order to prove their willingness to work with Daud before moving on Burrows. Dunwall would be in too much chaos after Burrows’s death anyway, and by going after so many other gangs all at once, people might suspect them of going on a spree, and they wouldn’t expect their next move would be a coup.

Deserting from the guard was bad enough, but here Corvo was contemplating treason. His mother would be so proud, he thought, sardonically.

Beatrici really would have been proud.

Corvo nodded slowly, as all of his thoughts settled into order. He took a deep breath, and wrapped one arm tight around Jess’s back, holding her close as he leaned forward and tried and failed to grab his glass of whiskey from the top of the desk.

“You could have just asked me for help,” Jess said, her face bright with an indulgent smile. She twisted around within his grip and grabbed first his, and then her own, glass.

“More fun this way,” Corvo mutters, pulling her ever closer. He accepted his glass of whiskey with a significant look at Jess, and sipped. His last stop abroad had been Karnaca, and glad as he was to drink familiar Serkonan wines at familiar old cafes and bars, he was glad to be back in Dunwall. He had a certain appreciation for the whiskey, and for his drinking partner.

With a positively predatory smile on her face, Jess leaned in, and pressed one gentle kiss to the side of his neck, an inch or so below his ear. It was a very deliberate move, one that sent a rush of heat through Corvo’s chest.

“So you like my plan?” She asked. Her voice was low, a whisper that he felt against his skin more than he heard it.

“I’ll agree to your plan.” He said, knowing that it wasn’t quite what she wanted to hear. “There are a few things to think about, yet.” Namely, a contingency plan for if Daud ends up turning on them. Also, a plan for Emily’s welfare in case both of her parents were executed for crimes against the imperial government.

She pulls back, and sighs.

“I know. But there’s a lot we need to learn, yet. We need to find how much support Burrows has within parliament, and within the Abbey, and how much of that support is being paid for. And there’s no use disposing of Burrows if he will only be replaced by someone worse. I’m not sure where we can find a suitable person in Dunwall. Maybe we should just look into starting an empire-wide revolution — maybe that’s something that we should discuss with Daud. I still need to think about some things,” she admits, her voice falling. “But I’ve made up my mind.”

A heavy silence settled between them, and slowly, the sounds of the chaos outside of their own little room began to fill in the silence. Rushed, perfunctory scales on a piano, brash laughter, and thud after thud of a hammer hitting a nail.

Corvo took another sip of his whiskey, and took a slow breath, pulling Jess just a little bit closer to his chest.

“Did you want me to take those runes and charms and deliver our message to Daud tonight?” He asked. When she’d outlined the plan earlier, it had seemed like the kind of thing that would fall to Corvo. Corvo, and perhaps one or two of their most competent people. He assumed she wasn’t ready to initiate her master plan just yet, but he had to make sure.

She shook her head, her perfect pink lips quirking up at the sides. Jessamine was done talking about work.

“No. Absolutely not. We’re not acting until we have a full plan in place, not with something this serious. Besides, Emily has a movement from a concerto to play for you. We’ll spend some time together as a family, doing nothing in particular, and once Emily has been tucked into bed, you are going to tell your boss all about the business connections you made and the things you saw while you were away.”

Her blue eyes staring directly at his, she finished her whiskey with one smooth motion, and pressed a kiss to the other side of his neck, a perfect mirror to the first. Almost 15 years spent together, and she was a virtuoso when it came to playing to his weaknesses.

A laugh slipped through Corvo’s lips, and he wrapped his other arm about Jess’s neck, careful not to spill the remnants of his own whiskey.

“That’s strange.” He mutters, playing dumb. “I believe I already had that discussion with my boss when I got home four days ago.”

“Yes,” Jess whispered, nodding. “And she wants to have that conversation again. Maybe we’ll actually make it into bed this time...”

And just as Corvo was about to say something very suave and charming, or some kind of attempt at it, the sounds of agitated, discordant hammering at the piano keys drifted up from the floor below. He looked to Jess, who looked thoroughly bemused.

“Emily first.” She whispered.

“Emily first.” He agreed.

She sat up from his lap, and offered him a hand to help him stand from his chair. With a wink, she took his whiskey and poured just a little more into his glass, and then her own. And then they walked, arm in arm, down the stairs, Jess pressing her cheek to Corvo’s arm.

Burrows would be out by the end of the month, if Jessamine had her way. And she always did.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Imperial Ballet in Dunwall hires a new male principal dancer. Jessamine finds him a little bit distracting during their morning class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news! I found the personal fortitude to finish another AU! I'm not 100% happy with this one, but I found myself wanting to turn this one into a 50k work fic, which I just... cannot. But I'm mostly happy with it, so I'll post it anyway. 
> 
> Remember 2010-2012, when ballet AUs were the greatest thing in fandom??? I couldn't resist. Many thanks to the Royal Opera House ballet company for posting videos of their morning classes on YouTube. It was a valuable resource to me, a person who knows almost nothing about ballet.
> 
> (Also, bad news, I wasted a bunch of time working on a Harry Potter AU that was very nearly finished. But now I just... can't. I can't finish it or post it. Anyway, the premise was that Minister of Magic Jessamine Kaldwin came to watch Emily play quidditch. After Emily ends up getting severely injured during the game, all of the students were very confused as to why their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Attano, was seen holding Jessamine's hand at Emily's bedside in the Hospital Wing. I was *so* close to finishing it, but I just can't. I might try and turn my attention to different AU idea I had, but no guarantees.).

Jessamine had been at the theater for hours before she ever walked into the studio that morning for warmups, her bag full of shoes and highly nutritious snacks slung over her shoulder. About half of the company was already gathered there, dressed in their warm-up clothes, getting ready for a typical day of class and rehearsals. In one corner of the mirrored room, directly across from the main doors, Jessamine found her sister with some of her friends from the corps, sitting on the floor, prepping their new pairs of pointe shoes. 

“I think I’m going to need to visit the fitter again,” one of the girls, a young dancer named Marykate, was saying as she sewed her ribbons onto her shoe. “I’m having toe problems. But they already have a dozen shoes for me on backorder, and the company’s already paid for them.”

“Oh, don’t feel guilty spending the company’s money. I give you permission, my dear. Besides, some apprentice will probably use them anyway, it won’t be a total waste.” Delilah said, her head turning as she saw Jessamine’s bag fall to the floor. “Hey,” she said quietly, swinging her legs around to the side in order to do a hurdler’s stretch, and pressing her head towards the floor. 

“Good morning,” Jess said, dropping down onto the cold floor beside her sister. She gave a nod and a quick smile to the cluster of dancers at Delilah’s other side, and set about exchanging her warm-up boots for a pair of leg warmers and her usual pink slippers. 

“So you didn’t answer my text last night,” Delilah said, her voice muffled by the fact that her face was mere millimeters from the floor. “Which was rude, but I’ll try not to hold a grudge. I asked if you wanted to get dinner before the show on Saturday, just the two of us.” 

“Sorry,” Jess said automatically, pulling on her first shoe, and sparing a quick wave to Geoff Curnow as he walked by. “I went to bed early, and I forgot to charge my phone overnight.” 

One of those things was true. Hopefully, Delilah wouldn’t figure out which. 

“You were in bed by 8:30?” Delilah said, slowly rising up from her stretch, rolling her shoulders as she extended and arched her back. 

“I had a horrible headache,” Jess said quickly, while trying not to fiddle with her tights too much as she pulled on her shoes.  _ Don’t give it away.  _ “And some of us wake up at 5:30 every morning and are used to turning in early. And dinner on Saturday sounds lovely.”

“Sure,” Delilah said, her voice coloring with darkness. “But if I find out you’re lying and were doing something scandalous without me…”

Jessamine knew she was joking, but she was very glad that her sister decided to contort herself into another stretch and dropped the topic. As usual, Delilah was just a little too prescient for her own good. 

Well, for  _ Jessamine’s _ own good. Delilah would be delighted if she knew what Jessamine had been up to. And frankly, that was exactly why Jessamine wanted Delilah not to know. 

“What are you even doing here, anyway?” Delilah asked as she sat up and started stretching out her shoulders. “Don’t you have a rehearsal with your new work husband in an hour?” Delilah turned to look at Jessamine directly and narrowed her eyes.

“I’m here to warm up with everyone else.” Jess insisted, waving a hand towards the doors, as more and more dancers arrived in the studio. “I’m allowed to, aren’t I?” 

With a very sharp scoff, the kind of reaction that their father always chastised her for, Delilah shook out her arms. 

“Sure,” she said, and she finally started putting on her own shoes. 

Ready for the barre exercises, and ready to stay away for Delilah long enough for her to forget about their conversation, Jessamine left her bag in one of the cubbies along the wall, decided at the last minute she was chilly enough to pull on one of her sweaters and took her usual place at one of the freestanding barres in the middle of the studio floor. She said her hellos and good mornings to Callista and Cecelia, two corps members who had taken to warming up at the barre opposite her’s with Callista’s cousin, Geoff. Then she adjusted her tights and practice skirt one last time, and took three slow breaths. 

She practiced a few releves and plies and ran through her daily schedule as a way to clear her mind before class. She’d already had a fitting for her new costumes that morning with a few of the company seamstresses and had had a quick breakfast with her father at the cafe across the street. She’d be leaving halfway through the class that morning for a pas de deux rehearsal that would last until lunch. After lunch, there was a company rehearsal on the main stage to prepare for the little fundraiser show they were doing on Saturday, and that was all. It was a fairly simple day, which was a blessing, all things considered— 

And then Jessamine was shocked out of her focus by her father’s familiar booming voice. Her head snapped to the open doors, where her father stood, his face smiling. To one side stood Daud, their teacher for the morning’s class. To his other side was the newest member of their company, the principal dancer who had just left the Karnaca City Ballet to join the Imperial Ballet in Dunwall — Corvo Attano. Corvo was dressed in a simple black sweater and grey tights. He stood with his feet in perfect third position and looked around the studio with an impassive, but by no means cold, look on his face. 

“Good morning, dancers.” Euhorn said, giving everyone a wide, cheery smile. Delilah always said that their father should have been a politician, not a dancer-cum-ballet company creative director. Sometimes, Jessamine agreed with her. “I wanted to introduce the newest member of our company. As you all know, Corvo has joined us at the Imperial Ballet at the suggestion of Theodanis Abele, the owner of the Karnaca City Ballet and Corvo’s old mentor.” 

He waved a hand towards Corvo’s chest, and Corvo gave a weak smile and a small wave to the assembled company. 

“I won’t disturb Daud’s class any longer, but please remember to welcome Corvo to the family.” 

Euhorn nodded and bowed out of the room, and the moment he was gone, Daud barked out instructions to the class, asking everyone to please take their places at the barre. 

Jessamine tried not to watch as Corvo set his own bag down along the wall, and realized that she was, in fact, watching him when Delilah’s voice in her ear startled her out of her reverie. 

“Thick thighs, broad chest. Now that’s what a male principal dancer should look like.” 

“You would say that,” Jessamine whispered, giving Delilah a playful shove towards the barre next to Jessamine’s, where Breanna stood waiting for Delilah to join her. 

As Daud had a few last-minute words with Samuel, the accompanist who sat at the piano bench, Jessamine squared her shoulders, and tried not to pay too much attention to the fact that Corvo was heading towards the open spot directly across from her. Of course, it made perfect sense that he would— Corvo knew Geoff Curnow from Geoff’s time in Karnaca, and Geoff, as one of the other principals, always warmed up in the center of the room with Jess and Delilah. 

Of course, Corvo would take his place at the barre across from her. Everyone within the ballet knew that they had been cast as partners in several upcoming productions, and everyone with the slightest interest in ballet throughout the empire knew it as well — the ballet had been pushing that fact for publicity. Their upcoming run of  _ The Inventor’s Workshop  _ wouldn’t premiere for more than three months, and it was already being advertised on the sides of Dunwall city buses. 

And aside from Geoff, Jessamine was the only other person in the ballet that Corvo had already met. Not that anyone else knew that. But it made sense to her, and probably to Corvo as well.

She whispered a quick  _ hello  _ to him as Daud finally started the class, and barked out instructions to the assembled company as their plié exercises began. 

Thankfully, with the help of the lovely folk music Samuel was playing for the class, and the knowledge that Daud was not afraid to single out the principal dancers for making the slightest technical mistake, Jessamine made it through the pliés with little trouble. She very literally held her head high and focused on every tiny detail of her movement. 

Minutes passed, and Jessamine thought of nothing but the rhythm of the music, her technique and Daud’s instructions. But eventually, they finished their pliés, and moved onto the tendu exercises. There was a short pause in the music, and a short break in their movements as everyone took a moment to relax, adjust their postures, and shake out their limbs. As she stretched out her shoulders, she turned in towards the barre and leaned forward for one final stretch of her legs. Corvo, it seemed, was doing the same thing, as he had one hand resting on the barre, and the other was wrapped around his ankle as he pulled his leg back, bent at the knee, to stretch his hamstrings. He caught her looking, and so quickly she almost missed it, he winked and turned back to stand perpendicular to the barre, waiting in second position. 

_ Was she blushing _ ? 

Letting out a deep breath, Jessamine bent over to adjust her one leg warmer, pulling up to her knee. And that was a mistake, because Delilah, to her side, just happened to have turned towards her sister, and raised one eyebrow and tilted her head. 

Shit, she was blushing. 

Jessamine spared a quick glance towards the clock, and saw— _ Outsider’s eyes _ . Only four minutes had passed since the class began. It would look suspicious, but no one would stop her if she left class now, would they? 

Despite her temptation, Jessamine stayed at the barre, and extended her right leg forward, her foot arching and pressing into the floor, ready for whatever instructions Daud would give. 

Twenty minutes later, they took a quick break to move the barres from the floor to prepare for the centre segment of the class. Jessamine dodged any more flirting from Corvo and any suspicious looks from Delilah and made a beeline straight for her bag. She traded her slippers for her pointe shoes, and pulled off her sweater, adjusting the straps of her leotard and flattening down the hem of her practice skirt long enough to justify taking a spot at the edge of the floor as Daud ran through his intentions for their pirouette exercises. 

In groups of five or six, members of the company took turns walking to the center of the studio floor, and demonstrated. The movements were familiar, but the combinations were not. Each turn required just a little more concentration and dedication, and it was enough of a distraction for Jessamine to forget that Corvo Attano was ever in the room. 

But the pirouettes came to an end eventually, and with another half an hour until it was time for her to rehearse with Corvo, Jessamine had no reason to leave class just yet. And it was time to practice their jumps, a very important part of a daily warm-up—Dr. Hypatia, the company physiotherapist, would be disappointed in Jess for not warming up properly when she’d been having so much trouble with her hamstrings. 

This time, Jessamine went with the very first group of dancers, with Geoff and with one of the soloists, Lydia. She walked around the side of the studio, watching as principals, soloists, and corps members alike chasséed, sautéed, and jêted across the studio floor. 

She joined the milling throng of dancers who waited, their feet in first position and their arms at their side, watching and waiting for their turn on the floor. And without realizing it, her feet led her directly to Corvo’s side. 

_ Or had he put himself in her path? _

“How are you feeling this morning?” He asked, his voice low and mellow. 

Perhaps she should have held her tongue — no, really, she should have held her tongue — but Jessamine could not. She offered him a quick, skeptical glance and asked, “Are you asking because you’re concerned, or are you flirting again?” 

Corvo, at least, smiled. With a quick flash of perfect white teeth, he took one step towards the dance floor and said over his shoulder, “I thought I was just being polite.” And with two long strides, he joined a group of two other dancers — Cecelia and Teague — and danced across the floor, mimicking the same combination as everyone else. 

And Jessamine didn’t even bother to hide her stares. 

Corvo was famous for his jumps. Everyone, in every ballet company and academy across the isles, knew that there was no one quite as graceful or as beautiful as Corvo when it came to jetês. They’d all watched the press videos on the Karnaca Ballet’s YouTube channel, had all seen the perfectly timed photos, and they’d all talked about nothing else from the moment Euhorn had announced that Corvo had signed a contract with their company. But seeing a video or a photo, or having another member of the corps break down the minuscule mechanical aspects of Corvo’s technique that makes his jumps so spectacular was very different from simply… watching. And Jessamine had never seen Corvo dance in person before. Nothing could have stopped her from watching his long, muscular legs and his perfect posture as his feet carried him from a chassé out of third, to a grande jetê, then added a tour en l’aire at the end, as if nothing that he’d just done required any thought or effort on his part. As if that was just how his body was meant to move. 

Jessamine almost certainly imagined it, when it seemed like Samuel’s music quieted as Corvo danced. Of course it hadn’t — Samuel was the perfect professional, whose music wasn’t thrown by anything. 

The only thing that made Jessamine feel a little bit better about her overt staring was that everyone else was staring at Corvo, too. Even Delilah, who pretended that nothing impressed her. 

Corvo either pretended not to notice, or was so used to the stares. Once he’d completed the combination, he walked around the perimeter of the room to rejoin the rest of the class at the back. The people and the place were new to him, but this was just another morning class, just like every other he’d had in his career and training. 

Along the way, though, he did stop to take off his dark sweater. He left the sweater next to his bag, and that left him in his tights and a plain white t-shirt. The shirt left his strong arms bare, but thankfully covered up — 

“You’re staring.” Delilah muttered in Jess’s ear. Every muscle tensed in Jessamine all at once, which certainly wasn’t helpful for a warmup class, but she was just glad that she didn’t jump, or squeal from the surprise. She never could keep a secret from Delilah… 

“Like you’re not?” Jessamine bites back, and steps up to the front of the class to make sure she’s part of the first group of dancers to follow Daud’s instructions for the next combination. She takes her place in a line with Calista and Lucinda, and behind them, Goeff steps into place in the window between the other two girls, and next to him is… Corvo. 

Jessamine stands, posture perfect and ready to go, ready for Daud’s next instructions. But the dour man turns away from the students for just a moment to have a quick word with Samuel at the piano. She spares a quick glance at the clock on the far studio wall — there were still 20 minutes left before her rehearsal with Corvo began. She could leave now, but she was already waiting in line… 

With a heavy sigh, Jessamine stays where she is, shoulders back, hands at her side, feet in third position, ignoring the way that she just knows that Delilah is staring at her, ignoring the fact that Corvo is just feet behind her. It’s a little harder to ignore Corvo when she feels him lean forward, as Daud and Samuel are still in conversation. 

“Could I walk with you to the studio for our rehearsal?” He asked, and once again, Jessamine was so thankful she didn’t visibly jump, even if her heartbeat stuttered and started. Delilah was still staring. “I was a little distracted during my tour of the theater yesterday. I’m not sure if I remember where to go.” 

And oh, she was certainly blushing. Hopefully, anyone who noticed would chalk it up to the dancing, not the way that the new principal dancer was flirting with her. 

“Of course,” she murmured, turning her head to answer him, and oh. He was standing just behind her. His dark eyes were soft and his face was placid, with just a hint of a smile on his lips. But she must have been staring, or something on her face must have concerned him, because the smile vanished in an instant. “Did you make it to your costume fitting on time this morning? You weren’t late?” 

_ What was taking Samuel and Daud so long?  _

“No, no. I was right on time. Thank you for driving me home.” 

“Of course. It was the least I could do.” 

The very least he could have done was  _ nothing _ , but Jessamine wasn’t going to say that. She wasn’t going to say anything else, except for another quick and quiet  _ thank you _ that slipped past her lips without ever meaning to say it. But the less she could say, the better, with another 10 minutes remaining until she could justifiably leave class. 

Daud finally turned away from the piano, and Corvo finally stepped back into place. Daud listed the steps they were to take, demonstrated a particular arm movement he wanted them to pay attention to doing their first turn. 

The consummate professional, Jessamine followed Daud’s instructions to the letter. She focused only on the feeling of her toes on the floor, the movement of every muscle in her body, and the quick tempo of Samuel’s music. And then, as she and the handful of other dancers reached the opposite wall of the studio and the next group took their turn on the floor, Jessamine briefly turned around and caught Delilah’s eye. She was standing next to Breanna with the waiting crowd of students, hand on her hip, her eyes narrowed and dark. With her free hand, she pointed one long finger at Corvo, who was waiting just behind Jessamine’s shoulder, and then she raised one eyebrow. She was asking some kind of silent question, but whether or not she was asking the right question, Jessamine wasn’t about to find out. 

“Corvo,” she whispered, trying not to disrupt the class. “I think I’m going to leave now, before we start another exercise.” 

“Alright,” he said. Jessamine watched as he glanced up at the clock. If he was confused by her choice to depart from class slightly early, he didn’t say a thing. 

They split off, and retreated to opposite corners of the studio to change their shoes and grab their bags. They stepped lightly and carefully as the rest of the company continued to practice and warm up with Daud, and slipped through the front doors just a minute or two later. 

Out in the hallway, Corvo waved his arm and held out his palm, a silent  _ after you _ . She adjusted the way that the strap of her bag laid on her shoulder, and silently, turned to the left and walked down the hallway. She walked past her father’s office and Hypatia’s medical suite and turned another corner and ducked into the little alcove where the ancient elevators 

She wondered if Corvo really had forgotten how to find his way to the elevator to the fourth-floor studio, or if it was an excuse to spend just a little more time with her. She really wanted to think it was the latter option, but the theater was a very old building that easily confused newcomers. 

_ Why on earth was she wondering if a man was interested in her after she’d already had sex with him?  _

Feeling suddenly frustrated with herself, Jessamine pressed the brass button to call the elevator, and she chanced a small smile for Corvo as she stepped back to wait for the elevator to arrive, standing next to him. She felt determined to fill the silence. 

“Most rehearsals with Andre will be in the studio on the fourth floor. It’s quieter up there, which he prefers. And since he helped my father rebuild the company after Larisa Olaskir died...”

“He gets that studio. Understood.” 

This is why she never tried having any kind of relationship with another dancer in the company. She never had time to date at all, let alone date someone whose schedule was as demanding and unpredictable as hers. She didn’t seem to be very good at any of this. 

“That was Delilah you were talking to during class?” He asked, looking at her over his shoulder as the elevator doors slid shut. 

“Yeah, that was her.” 

“I have a sister,” he said. “She’s the only family I have left. Beatrici lives in Potterstead now, though she moves every few years. Part of the reason I moved to Dunwall was to be closer to her.” 

“Are you two close?” 

“We used to be, before she left Karnaca for Morely. I was still a student at the ballet academy then. I work too much, so I haven’t kept in touch with her as much as I should have. But she’s already gotten her ticket to come see  _ The Inventor’s Workshop  _ on opening night.” 

“Well, I am much closer to my sister than I’d like to be. Then again, she’s never bothered to buy a ticket to any of my shows, so…” 

Corvo smiled again, which was far more than Jessamine’s joke deserved, in her mind. 

She would have to stretch again before they started rehearsing their dance. There were already knots of tension forming in her shoulders from her internal fretting. 

Jessamine was utterly thankful that it was the fun, silly little pas de deux they were rehearsing with Sokolov today, and not anything heavier. She’d rather have a little more time to get her feelings for Corvo under control before they started rehearsing the duet from the second act of  _ The Prince of Tyvia  _ together. Delilah’s knowing look made her feel certain that she was projecting every feeling outwards, in her face and in her body language for everyone to see. And Sokolov had known Jessamine her entire life, he would notice that there was something between Jess and Corvo, and then he’d crack some lewd joke about it to her father, and the only thing worse than Delilah knowing about her and Corvo was her father knowing. 

_ Outsider’s eyes _ . What exactly was Jessamine going to have to do to stop fixating on how she was acting around Corvo? She was a grown, independent adult, and so was Corvo. The other dancers dated within the company all of the time, why was she feeling so self-conscious about this? 

Jess cocked her head to the side, pulling on all of her acting skills to simply look bored by the slow ascent of the elevator. She chanced a quick look at Corvo in her periphery. 

He was a handsome man. He had admitted to being a workaholic, but so was she. He could be very serious when working, and a bit of a dork when he wasn't in his element in the studio or on stage, but she was exactly the same way. They had things in common, and there was nothing strange about it. Sure, the gossip would be horrible, not just within the company but within the entire ballet community as well. But the gossip would come no matter what. It always did when two principal dancers were continuously paired with one another, every laugh and smile shared between them was a sign that their chemistry wasn’t just saved for their dancing. It was unavoidable. 

And Jessamine had enjoyed herself last night. That was something she hadn’t done in… quite some time. It was better not to put an exact amount of time to it. 

The elevator came to a jarring stop, and the doors slid open. The fourth floor was home to many offices, a few prop and scenery storage rooms, and one single studio at the southern corner of the building. Jess stepped out of the elevator, and for some reason, she felt the need to turn over her shoulder and make sure Corvo was still following her. 

An irritatingly rational thought occurred to her in the middle of her self-conscious fretting, and Jessamine came to a sudden halt in the middle of the hallway. 

There was a very simple solution to her problem, wasn’t there? And having something to look forward to as a pleasant distraction would certainly make her feel more comfortable about the sudden and inescapable feelings she had for Corvo, right? 

“Corvo?” She asked. He came to a halt right beside her and turned his body in, just the slightest, to face her. 

“Yes?” 

Jessamine had never really asked anyone out on a date before, but there was a first time for everything. 

She tilted her head back to look up at him, with his placid and serious face. 

“Would you like to get dinner with me? Tonight, if you’re available?” 

“Of course.” He frowned, and looked down and away from her for just a second. “I suppose we skipped past that step yesterday.” 

“I don’t mind.” 

“Neither do I, to be honest.” 

“Good. I’m looking forward to dinner already.” 

“Me too.” 

If the rest of the day was any indication, that one question was all Jess needed to focus, and to hold her head high. Their pas de deux rehearsal went perfectly well, for two dancers who were dancing together for the first time. Sokolov was delighted with their work, and to say his delight was a rare occurrence would be an understatement. And a little later that day, during the company rehearsal on the mainstage, she felt absolutely none of the nervous distraction or self-consciousness that she had fought with during the morning class. Even Delilah’s pointed looks were easily ignored. 

Jessamine really was looking forward to dinner. And anything that might happen after. 

***

Jessamine was the victim of an ambush the next morning. 

Delilah was sitting and waiting for her on one of the little metal benches outside of the cafe across the street from the theater. She held two coffee cups in her hands, and slowly pushed her sunglasses on top of her head as she saw her younger sister walking down the sidewalk. 

“You ignored my text. Again.” She said, standing up and holding out the coffee meant for her sister with an outstretched arm. 

With a straight face, Jess grabbed the paper cup and turned on her heel. 

“I was on a date,” she said over her shoulder, not even taking the time to watch Delilah’s reaction before she turned forward to check for traffic on the narrow, cobblestone street. The road was clear, so she quickly crossed the street. 

“What? You wretched creature,” Delilah cried behind her, and Jess could hear the stomp of her sister’s boots as Delilah followed after her. Jessamine hoped that the stream of people on the sidewalk getting their own coffee on their morning commute to work gave her sister the funny looks she deserved. “Tell me everything! Was it with— _ no _ ! Jessamine!” 

Jess turned around once she reached the other side of the street. Delilah was standing at the edge of the opposite sidewalk, glaring at the three cars that had just turned onto the street, heading in her direction, that were preventing her from crossing. Jess just knew that Delilah had fit the pieces together in her head, and had correctly guessed who she had been with. 

Jess waved to her sister and gave her a wide, vicious smile, and took a sip of the coffee Delilah had given her. And then she walked through the stage doors before Delilah could catch up to her. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another year, another birthday, and another picnic breakfast shared in a little boat on the Wrenhaven.

On the third Day of the Month of Earth, they took a little boat out onto the river, as they had done for nearly 25 years. They had a basket packed with fruit and wine and pastries, and found a peaceful spot on the water between the lanes of the massive trading ships that passed by.

As Corvo cut off the engine, Jessamine pulled the cork from the bottle of wine, and took a sip. They’d never bothered to pack glasses before, so why start now?

She held out the bottle as Corvo settled onto the narrow wooden bench beside her. He took the bottle with one hand and wrapped the other around her waist, and pulled her close as he sipped on the sweet Serkonan white wine. Jessamine had been the one to pick it from the celler — she thought a sweet wine went the best with breakfast.

And somehow, Jessamine had a reputation among Parliament for being upright and strict.

She pulled a bunch of grapes from the basket, and nestled her head against Corvo’s shoulder as she popped one grape into her mouth and let her eyes drift shut.

It was just past dawn, and the sun was still rising, but it was already warm and humid in Dunwall. Corvo had left his jacket back in the Tower, cast off in favor of his vest and shirtsleeves, and, as always, his pistol and sword. Jessamine was tempted to shrug off her own jacket, but hadn’t yet decided if it was worth it to move her head from Corvo’s shoulder. His shoulders were the perfect pillow.

She would be fine for a little while longer, she supposed.

Jessamine cast her eyes over the city around her — from the Tower to the clock tower to the Parliament building to the bridge named after her father in the distance. Dunwall was not an easy city to live in, and not an easy city to rule, but Jessamine had liked to think she’d improved it over the years. She’d been crowned Empress as a very young woman, and had been unfortunate enough to watch as the boom from the whale oil trade slowed, and as, in its wake, the poor had become poorer and the rich had become richer. Jessamine likes to think that the city and the Empire have navigated their way through the worst of the troubles, even if there are always more to come.

But Jessamine likes to think that Dunwall has fundamentally changed, and for the better. After Corvo personally arrested Hiram Burrows for treason and for planning an assassination attempt against her, and a few prominent members of the nobility were either literally or metaphorically taken down a peg after they were deemed complicit, the very culture of the city seemed to change. Things were not perfect, and there were still fractious elements at every level of the Empire’s governments who resisted change. But Jessamine had managed to institute a few changes that would help more children stay in school, to improve the conditions in the silver and iron mines, and to keep the wealthiest of citizens from taking advantage of their servants and employees. She hoped the changes would be long-lasting and help the city grow and thrive for years.

And here she was, not even 50 years old, and she was close to surpassing Alexy Olaskir for his record of longest reigning Emperor of the Four Isles. What a dangerous place Dunwall and the Empire could be. And she never could have done it without Corvo, the only man she’d ever loved, or had wanted to spend the rest of her life with. 

That was what her father had always feared, when she’d picked Corvo to be her Lord Protector when she little more than a child. That she’d grow up and fall in love with the handsome soldier from Serkonos, the one who had made a vow before the whole Empire to protect her life at all costs. 

Euhorn had always been a bit of a pessimist when it came to love. His handful of rash affairs and his tepid relationship with Jessamine’s mother was enough to prove that. And he had been right to fear that, because that had been precisely what happened. Jessamine never could understand why her father was certain such a relationship would end badly, though. Perhaps if she’d gotten to know her father as more than just the Emperor and the man who was supposed to teach her how to rule after his death, then she’d understand. Perhaps Jessamine would have never understood, no matter what. 

Perhaps now was a good time to bring up a certain subject or two that she’d been meaning to discuss with Corvo, but had been saving for a quiet moment.

The bottle of wine was half empty when Jessamine brushed away the crumbs from a tartlet filled with nuts and Serkonan spices and gently cleared her throat.

“So I had a talk with Emily the other night, while you were in the training grounds.” And perhaps that was the wrong way to start that conversation because that was exactly how she’d told Corvo that she’s had the ‘this is how you handle your monthly visitor’ talk, the ‘this is how you handle telling people you would like to date both men and women’ talk, and the ‘this is how you avoid getting pregnant’ talk with their daughter.

“Oh.” Corvo said, letting a prolonged sigh slip from between his lips. He took the bottle of wine from her hands, and took a rather generous sip from the mouth of the bottle. “What about?”

“Nothing horrible,” Jess said, lifting her head from his shoulder just long enough to press a kiss to his stubbled jaw. Some days it frustrated her how, despite the passing years, Corvo was as strong and as capable as ever, when she woke up each morning with a surprising new ache in her bones. And despite Corvo’s own protests that she was imagining the wrinkles and the grey in her own hair, it was almost infuriating to her how he was as handsome as the day she first met him. Patches of grey hair and modern, angular clothes suited him just as well as his long dark hair and his old blue coat did.

Apparently, he had distracted her for too long, and in her silence, Corvo stole a kiss from her lips and reached down into the basket to get another tart.

“What did you talk about, Jess?”

“Emily,” she said, relaxing again, as she tried to keep the rush of pride for their daughter from clouding her voice. “Emily told me that she’s going to ask Wyman to marry her once they get back from their trip home to Morley. She’s written a letter to Wyman’s mother and older sister, the Ladies Wyman, asking for their blessing, but she doesn’t plan on sending it until she knows that Wyman’s ship has departed from Arran. She thinks she’ll wait a few months to ask, probably on the anniversary of the day they met to make things special. I can’t imagine Wyman saying no to her, when she does ask.” 

Wyman was everything Jessamine could have ever hoped for in a partner for Emily. Wyman made her laugh like she was a little girl again, and made her eyes light up just by walking into the room. But Wyman was also intelligent and considerate and a loyal and clever member of court, and they understood the complexities of being in a relationship with the heir to the empire. They had never been anything but courteous and respectful of the fact that they had to share Emily’s time and attention with an empire. The fact that their marriage would help bring Morley, ever the old island out, a little closer to the Empire was a wonderful coincidence. It wasn’t a political match—Wyman was a perfect match for Emily for their sakes alone.

“Good,” is what Corvo said, his voice as gruff and solemn as she’d ever heard it. “Wyman is good for her. I'm happy.”

Jessamine sat up, and slipped her jacket from her shoulders. The warm breeze from the river was lovely, but he hadn’t actually torn her head from Corvo’s shoulder because she was too warm. No, removing her jacket was a ruse so she could look at Corvo’s face. She was far from surprised to see his dark eyes brimming with tears.

As the Imperial Heir and as the Empress, Jessamine had always been surrounded by people who were never sincere with their feelings. They tried to flatter her and cajole her by acting how they thought she wanted them to act, all the while letting their disgust and distaste with one thing or another fester in private. She could go weeks without anyone being honest with her. The handful of men who had formally courted her were the worst of it. Perhaps that was why she had chosen to publicly swear off courtship and marriage and privately confessed her love to Corvo. 

Honest, earnest Corvo had been so easy to love. And Jessamine was so thankful that Emily had found the same kind of love.

Jessamine kissed Corvo on the cheek and ran her fingers through the grey hair at his temple, simply because she could.

Corvo smiled as she pulled back, and dabbed at his eyes with the handkerchief he kept in the pocket of his vest.

“I don’t want to pry…” mumbled, stuffing the white cloth back into his pocket. “But do Emily and Wyman have a plan for, uh…”

Bless him.

“Having an heir?” She offered.

Corvo nodded, glad he wasn’t the one responsible for finding a suitable euphemism.

“Emily said they have a plan. Whatever that means, I will leave it up to the two of them. I’m content to let the private part of their relationship be private. But I’ll admit, I plied Emily with a little bit of whiskey during our conversation. Not that I wanted to find out..." Jessamine stopped talking, before she said anything she might regret. "I wasn't prying for any information I don't actually want to know. But Emily told me she’s been thinking about baby names for years.”

Corvo laughed, pushing away the look of melancholy that had settled in his eyes.

“Do you remember the names she used to give her dolls when she was young? Mrs. Pilsen was the tamest of the names, and she was a gift, anyway. But what kind of names did she suggest for our possible… grandchild?”

Corvo’s words cut through Jessamine’s own laughs. For some reason, she hadn’t thought of Emily and Wyman’s potential child in such a way. Maybe because there was so much to be done between now and then… or maybe because she never knew either of her own grandmothers, and Emily had never met hers, either. Grandmother was not the type of role Jessamine had ever imagined filin. But it would be nice to be a grandmother.

Although Jessamine wasn’t even 50 years old — even if Emily and Wyman waited a few years, she would still be a very young grandmother, wouldn’t she? She’d been a young mother, and Emily was already older than Jessamine was when she became a mother, but Jessamine still felt far too young.

That was something to think about at another time.

“Well, Emily said she would like a little girl. The third Empress in a row. If it is a girl, she was thinking Beatrix, or Beatrici — she wasn’t certain which she prefered. For a boy, she was considering Jacob, and for something a little more neutral, she was thinking Drexel or maybe Attano, but she preferred those as middle names. Of course, Wyman will have some input, but you know how Emily can be.”

Corvo pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, the one he had just put away, and worried it between his hands. He didn’t say anything else. They’d cared less and less about keeping Emily’s paternity a secret as the years wore on and as the people around them seemed to care less. But their daughter naming her own child after his sister, or naming them Attano was… something else entirely. It was lovely, of course, but in many ways, it was a surprise.

But today was her birthday, and Jessamine was not going to let Corvo spend the whole brooding about their daughter growing up. So she pressed the wine back into his hands and changed course.

“I have something else to talk about. You see, I’ve been doing quite a lot of thinking lately. I’ve been considering sharing more responsibilities with Emily, and I would like for her to have a little more experience with statesmanship and ruling before she adds things like marriage and children to her life. That way, if something were to happen to me, she will have had some experience to help her when her time comes.”

Corvo shifted again and pulled harder at the edge of his handkerchief. He never liked it when she talked about her own death—and as her Lord Protector and one and only love, she supposed it must be completely anathema to him. But it needed to be said.

“What were you thinking of having Emily do?” He asked, with another sip of wine. Then he tried to hide his distress with a distraction, by holding the green glass bottle up to the sunlight. There was only a little left. They would have to rerurn to the water lock soon.

“I was thinking that I should take a tour of the islands, with my Lord Protector, of course. We’ll need about 6 weeks to plan everything. We’ll spend perhaps a month on each island, including Gristol, visiting every major city along the way. We can start at the north and work our way south. If we leave for Tyvia first, we’ll be able to get there and leave before it gets dreadfully cold for the winter. And if we happen to disappear into a secluded part of the countryside near Karnaca for a week at the end of it all, I don’t believe anyone will mind.”

She gave him a little wink, even if he wasn’t quite looking at her. No, his eyes were fixed on the clock tower to their right. He was probably thinking the same thing she was, that their time on the boat was not unlimited, that meetings with the Privy Council could not be ignored even for the Empress’s birthday, that Parliament would re-open for the new year, that Corvo was expected to examine a cohort of members of the City Watch to pick a few new people to guard the Tower.

But Corvo still found time to laugh.

“Trying to seduce me, Your Majesty?”

“I didn’t know that I had to try at this point. I thought I had you thoroughly seduced, but if I need to try harder, I will.”

Jessamine could be quite the actress, but even she couldn’t pretend that the hand she laid on Corvo’s thigh at that moment was an accident or a meaningless gesture. The man in question groaned, took one last drag from the wine bottle, and passed it back to his Empress and his charge.

“Some days, I think if you try any harder, you’ll kill me. I’m an old man now, you know.”

“Oh, don’t call yourself old. That means I’m nearly old, and I’m not, even though… well, having a 25-year-old daughter who will get married soon almost makes me feel so.”

Corvo lays a hand on top of hers.

“So what’s the plan, then?” He asks, not willing to let either one of them feel morose over what was, genuinely, a very happy subject. “Emily’s in charge while we’re gone, and we get back in time to announce the engagement?”

“Yes,” Jess said, her voice stronger as she sat up a little, and shifted on the wooden bench. “We’ll announce the engagement, and plan a wedding. It will be the first imperial wedding since Alexy’s, you know? It’s going to be a spectacle. After that, Emily and Wyman can go on a wedding journey. They’ll have to make a few diplomatic visits along the way, to the High Judges of Tyvia and the Dukes and Duchesses of Serkonos, and I expect they’ll want to spend some time in Morley with Wyman's family and friends. But because the Empress herself recently visited every major city, the people there will not be so desperate for the time and attention of the heir and her spouse. That way, the two of them can have a nice, relaxing trip before they come back home.”

“You think of everything, don’t you?” Corvo muttered. His admiration, as well as his love, saturated every word.

“That’s my job, my dear.”  
  
It was, perhaps, another half of an hour before Corvo turned on the engine and they piloted the boat back towards the water lock at the Tower. But Jessamine could not care one way or the other if she was late for her first appointment that morning. And if she didn’t care, then Corvo certainly didn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon Wyman as agender, because of a primal physical need to do so, but deliberately wrote them so that they could fit into whatever your HC of them is. (I mean, if they were presenting as a cis-man, it might seem a little strange.) 
> 
> So, there are a few more AU’s I’ve written for but haven’t completed yet. I really wanted to save this one as the last chapter, because it feels so final and complete, but I’m going to go ahead and post this now. I’m going back to work in my office now, and don’t have as much time to write. 
> 
> So I can’t guarantee that there will be other AU’s posted after this one, but I also can’t guarantee this is the end. There are a few AU ideas that I have that I really enjoy, so I’d say it’s a 50/50 chance I find it in me to complete them. 
> 
> Regardless, thank you to everyone for reading/commenting/leaving kudos! I’m so appreciative everyone enjoyed my indulgent writing. (Then again, let’s fave it, Jess & Corvo deserve something nice to happen to them.)


End file.
